


Cold Case 10-PHX-00001

by RenkonNairu



Series: One Sky Continuity [4]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Cabins, Camping, Case Fic, Comedy, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Horror, Hunting, Monster of the Week, Mutilated Corpses, Mystery, Platonic Relationships, cabin in the woods, killing small animals, mountain town, small town, what genre is this?, woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2020-06-25 10:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19743613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenkonNairu/pseuds/RenkonNairu
Summary: Warren, Will, and the others are all full heroes now. The city is recovering from its latest super villain attack, and everything's looking great. The gang decide to form a shared base instead of having separate Secret Sanctums, and Warren volunteers his Dad's old house as a base. But there's something stalking woods killing things around the old Battle cabin and they have to put a stop to it.Or, in which Warren must clean up his father's messes.





	1. Cabin in the Woods

A light fog drifted over the forest floor and their breath came out in puffs. It got cold up in the mountains. Early mornings were the coldest. 

The sun was just barely climbing over the trees and the woods still looked gray and mostly dark. The loggers turned the head lamps of their helmets on as they clutched their coffee thermoses close to them for the warmth. 

They weren’t even fully awake when they revved up their chainsaws and got to work. Four hefty loggers, freezing cold, not fully awake, and wielding circulating blades. Most of their attention was focused on what they were doing and not the woods around them. No one wanted to be the half-frozen, half-asleep idiot who dropped a tree on their friend’s head. 

No one noticed movement in the brush. Or if they did, they assumed it was some adorable and harmless forest creature fleeing their chainsaws. 

They didn’t realize they were in danger until one of them was already attacked. 

A creature, humanoid in shape. But very, very thin. Leathery ashen skin pulled tight over thick bones. Long bony fingers. Five fingers with an opposable thumb –human hands! But with long and broken fingernails that looked almost like claws. White hair that was matted and dirty. Falling down the creature’s back, and over its face. Glaring out from behind that curtain of hair were dark eyes, the whites yellowing and bloodshot. 

The first logger yelped when the creature grabbed him. But when the monster tore through his jacket and shirt to crack his chest open, the logger never made a sound again. 

Cracking the sternum, pulling back ribs, blood spurting in all directions. The creature closed one skeletal hand around the man’s heart. Bending down over his victim, the monster brought the warm dripping heart to his face, mouth open displaying yellow teeth, and took a bite out of the fresh human heart. 

The others all backed up in fear. 

One idiot had the bright idea to be a hero and charged at the monster with his chainsaw like something out of the Evil Dead. Bringing the circulating blade down on the monster’s shoulder. Black blood, thick and smelling putrid like rot spattered all over the logger. 

The monster pulled away from the blade, ripping more thin skin and chunks of bone with the action. The loggers stared in shock and horror as the wound began to close almost instantly. Exposed marrow regenerating, bone remodling over it, the waxy skin knitting back together to seal the wound. Standing frozen, all the loggers could do was stare at the creature. It was behind him before the loggers even knew what was happening. 

The creature thrust one arm through the man’s back, its claw-like bony hand coming out the front of his chest, holding the man’s heart in its hand. Wrenching the hand back out again, the monster brought the new heart to his mouth as the second logger’s body fell to the ground. 

Within a matter of minutes, all the loggers that had driven out to that site together were dead. Their hearts ripped out and eaten. 

And all before the heat of the day cleared the fog off the ground. 

…

“I gotta say, this is a lot smoother ride than what I was expecting.” Magenta commented. She was sitting sandwiched between Ethan and Zach in the backseat of a rented sedan. “The way you talk about Bedlam Unincorporated, I was expecting dirt roads, and barn animals just wandering around.”

“It’s an isolated mountain town, not rural Kansas.” Warren informed them all. He sat in the driver’s seat, Will in the passenger seat next to him. “Bedlam got a grant to rebuild after the whole Faultline fiasco same as Maxville. They used it on the main roads up into the town.”

Bedlam Unincorporated was a small town high up in the mountains just west of Maxville. To spite Warren’s comment, it was very rural. But timber rural, not agricultural rural. The town’s main industry was logging. They took great pains to make sure their main road up into the mountains was well maintained. While Bedlam could have used the government grant for repairs after a catastrophic earthquake devastated Maxville and the surrounding area –Bedlam included- to build a new school, better doctor’s office –or an actual hospital- update the local police equipment, or get the fire department a new fire truck, they instead poured the budget into repairing and repaving the logging roads. 

That was not why they were heading up into the mountains. 

Bedlam was also the town where Barron Battle grew up. Warren owned property in the woods just outside Bedlam. Up in the mountains, overlooking Maxville. 

That was what brought them up there. 

Originally, Steve Stronghold –whom discovered the property through realty records- meant the isolated mountain home to be a sort of base of operations for Warren. Similar to his own Secret Sanctum, only instead of being small, underground, and hiding inside a private home, this one would be large, out in the open, and meant solely for heroic pursuits. 

Warren, however, did not like the idea of sitting up on an isolated mountain, cackling in the dark like some kind of villain. 

He thought about selling the property. But the only buyer interested in purchasing the land was a logging company, and Warren knew Layla would not approve of that. Not even sort of. And he couldn’t let the place his dad grew up be torn down, bulldozed over, and completely erased by a soulless corporation either. Battle would love the idea, Warren knew his dad did not have many fond memories of his childhood home. But the property didn’t belong to Barron Battle anymore. After his incarceration, ownership transferred to Warren. 

So, since he wasn’t going to use it as a private base, and he wasn’t going to sell it, Warren was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. 

That was when Will pointed out that it overlooked Maxville and was at a perfect vantage point above the city. Not everyone in their group had the luxury of living in a big house in the suburbs, or have parents with established Secret Sanctums already installed in their homes. Some of them lived with roommates. Some of them lived in apartments. Some of them still lived with their super-but-not-hero parents. 

If Warren didn’t want it as a private base, then why not use it as a shared base?

Will, Warren, Magenta, Ethan, and Zach could all share it as a sort of ‘unified sanctum’. Layla had no interest in being a superhero and was resolved to use her powers to benefit the planet and improve the human experience in other ways. That being said, everyone agreed to keep Layla in mind when redesigning and renovating the property and buildings. She might not plan to be a hero in the conventional sense, but she was still one of them. 

“We’re about to pass out of cell service.” Warren warned everyone. “Anybody you wanna text, do it now.”

Will was the only one to reach for his phone. He wanted to send one more text to Layla reminding her that he was more than willing to fly back into town and bring her up if she wanted to join them. There was not enough time after he hit send for her to text back. 

Warren turned off the very well paved and diligently maintained highway onto a neglected and partially eroded dirt road. The car bounced and shook. Skipping over holes and depressions, raised tree roots and rocks. The tires kicking up dirt and gravel into the undercarriage. The whole cabin was filled with the sound of shaking metal, and clinks and plunks of pebbles on metal. 

“How deep in the woods actually is your dad’s old house?” Zach asked from the back seat, sounding inexplicably uncomfortable. 

The car ran over an erosion in the soil and jumped enough to cause the tallest members of their group –Warren and Zach- to bonk their heads on the ceiling of the car. 

“Lemme put it like this:” Warren growled. He was using his ‘anti-social danger man’ voice. The voice he used to use back in high school to try and scare people away from being his friends. It didn’t work on them anymore, so he repurposed the voice as his ‘dark hero of flame’ voice. But in this context, he was probably trying to scare them. “We’ll be so deep in the mountains, no one can hear you scream.”

Amazingly, this description of a supervillain’s childhood home did not reassure the light wielding super. 

“Hey, I’ve seen this movie.” Ethan, also, was now sounding less enthused. “Six idiots go into the woods and the black guy dies first.”

“Oh, I think I saw that one too!” Magenta added. “The Asian girl also died.”

“Nobody is going to die!” Will assured everyone. He turned around in the passenger seat to look at the others. “We’re just going to help Warren build the base we’re all gonna share. Since its supposed to be a secret base, we can’t hire a bunch of contractors. So we have to do a lot of the construction ourselves. Since we’re all gonna be using it, we all get to share in the work. It’s only fair.” 

“Hey, you know who always survives in those movies.” Warren couldn’t turn his head to look at the others, but he grinned ahead. “The bland white boy, with a generic personality, and hero complex.” 

Both Magenta and Ethan glanced from between Will, Warren, and Zach. 

“Yes, but which white boy?” She asked. 

“I was clearly describing Stronghold.” Warren sounded almost defensive.

“Hey!” Apparently, Will did not appreciate being described as ‘bland’ and ‘generic’. He cast a reprimanding glare at his best friend. “Ya know who else dies in those movies? The tall brooding one with daddy issues and an attitude problem.”

Magenta and Ethan snickered in the back seat. Zach did not. 

He was staring out the window at the trees passing by. It had been a while since they turned off the main road. Warren really wasn’t kidding about being so deep in the woods for no one to be able to hear them scream. They had passed out of cell service, were very far from the main road, and the main road was already pretty far out from town. 

Magenta jostled his arm. “C’mon, lighten up!”

Zach flashed a smile so forced, he looked almost like he was cringing. “How much longer until we get to Mr. Battle’s murder cabin again?”

“It’s not a murder cabin.” Will assured them, thinking he was helping Warren out by jumping to his friend’s defense. 

But Warren sucked in a breath between his teeth. “Well…”

“What?” Will focused all his attention back on his best friend. 

That old brooding expression was back on his face. From back before they were all friends. When Warren was constantly hostile and did not like to talk to anyone, let alone talk about his father. But, unlike before, Warren did not refuse to share. Especially not when it was information that the rest of the group would be even more upset over when they found out some other way. 

“There is a body buried somewhere on the property.” He told them flatly. As if it was just a fact, and not a big deal. “My dad doesn’t remember where.” 

This announcement was met with silence. 

Everyone else in the car just stared at Warren. He could feel their eyes boring into him as he drove. 

Then, all at once… 

“What!?” All four of them cried in unison. 

Warren visibly winced. 

Luckily for him, he was saved having to explain further by offering up a different distraction. The dirt road finally came to an end. “Alright. This is why I told you all to wear good shoes. We walk the rest of the way.”

Cutting the engine and making sure the parking break was locked Warren all but fled the car. Hopping out of the driver’s seat and coming around to the trunk of the car. He started pulling out their gear. Tents, sleeping bags, water bottles, and pre-packaged food. This was their first trip up to the property as a group and they didn’t plan to stay long. Just the weekend. 

In addition to their roles of superheroes, some of them also had day jobs. Some of them were still going to school, furthering their education by learning a trade, or earning certifications. They all had other commitments, both super and mundane that prevented them from staying up in the isolated mountains without cell service for too long. 

Warren handed the heaviest things to Will. Him being the strongest of their group –having super strength- it was only fair he carry the tents, the water, and a rented chainsaw.

They began trudging up the hill. Weaving between dense trees and underbrush. 

It was clear that there had been some kind of trail at one time. The path they were following was lined on either side by white stones. But whatever path they were on had not been maintained in thirty years. The white stones were displaced by tree roots, animal movement, natural ground shift, and –of course- the earthquake last year. But, finally, they made it to their destination. 

At first glance it looked like just the roof on an A-frame house collapsed on a molding old porch. The whole things was covered in vines, partially hidden by brush and tall grass. 

Upon closer inspection, they could see the broken glass of windows fallen on top of windows. Stone walls that had at one time been held together with cement. Some rotting boards that might have been a wooden porch deck. Everything was washed in green by a blanket of forest moss, clinging to the structure in clumps and clusters. 

The placed certainly looked abandoned. Decayed, even. Almost retaken by the woods. But definitely not sinister. Certainly not the kind of place one would expect a supervillain to come from. The only detail about the place that could be even remotely considered ‘hostile’ was a disused sledgehammer leaning against the rotting porch and covered in vines. 

But it didn’t look much like a secret base for a team of superheroes either, and the others were not impressed. 

“This is it?” Magenta crossed her arms over her chest. 

“Yeah.” Warren growled. Unimpressed by the fact that they were unimpressed. What were they expecting? The place had been abandoned for thirty years. “This is my dad’s murder cabin in the woods where no one can hear you scream.”

“I am seriously questioning the wisdom of me agreeing to come here.” Ethan muttered. 

“Did you bring us up here to kill us, dude?” Zach asked. 

Warren rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I brought you all up here to kill you. Our years of friendship and teamwork were all part of an elaborate and circuitous plan to lure you all up to a house I didn’t even know I owned until last year, to kill you.”

There was a beat of silence. His sarcasm was not particularly funny. 

Will coughed. 

The wind rustled the tree tops. The sound of leaves rubbing against leave and branches almost giving the impression of a thousand voices whispering indistinctly. That, and Warren’s earlier confession that there was a body buried somewhere on the property made everyone’s hair stand on end. They shuffled their feet nervously. 

Magenta cleared her throat. “So, what’s the plan?” She asked. “What are we gonna do here?”

Warren sighed, ready to get back to business. “Okay, we’ve only got the weekend to do this.” He began. “I figured I’d burn down the house so we can pitch the tents on the foundation. I assumed none of you would wanna pitch them on the ground since this grass hasn’t been mowed in thirty years and we don’t know what’s under it.”

Everyone’s mind jumped back to the confession that Barron Battle had buried a body somewhere on the property. No one wanted to sleep on top of a dead body. What Warren was actually concerned about was snake holes or rat nests and things. Warren grew up in a big city. He didn’t know what lived on a forest floor, and he certainly didn’t wanna sleep on it. 

“While I’m doing that,” he continued, “I’d like the rest of you to start clearing the path up to the house. So that next time, we can drive the car right up to the building without having to hike half a mile through trees.”

Nobody moved to start working. 

They all just stood there, staring at Warren. 

The pyrokinetic suppressed a growl, glaring back at them through the curtain of his hair. “What?”

“I just feel like maybe this whole ‘there might be a dead body up here’ thing needs a bit more discussion.” Ethan informed him on behalf of the group. 

“Who said anything about it being a dead body?” Warren shot back. Grinning slightly because –even though they were his friends- he did enjoy making them uncomfortable. Slight and petty payback for ignoring his open hostility and clear signals to leave him alone, for getting in under his barriers where he didn’t want people, and worming their way into becoming his friends. 

Everyone just continued to stare at him. 

“The body is my grandfather. My dad’s dad.” Warren took pity on them and decided to explain. “The one my dad inherited his powers from. Accelerated healing and revival from death. Nobody’s seen him in thirty years, so it’s a fair assumption that he’s still buried up here. But that’s no reason to assume he’s dead.”

“Yeah but-“ Will began unsure. Truth be told, he didn’t really understand Barron Battle’s powers. He just knew they were kinda scary to see in action. Like horror movie scary. Or poorly dubbed anime scary. “It’s been thirty years. After that long, even if he could revive, he’s gotta be dead for real. Like, doesn’t reviving take a lot out of you? I remember your dad complaining about being hungry after he got shot in the head. And you were really hungry after you got stabbed.”

Goodness knew they all got to see a lot of Baron Battle’s superpowers during the whole Faultline fiasco. 

A fiasco that ended with Warren getting stabbed in the heart and everyone learning that he, like Will, also inherited one power from each parent. Warren got his fire from his mother. And from Barron Battle he got the ability to revive after being killed. 

A massive earthquake nearly decimated Maxville. It was a cataclysmic quake so severe that it cracked open Maxville Penitentiary, the prison where Warren’s father was being held. Upon realizing that Faultline’s earthquakes didn’t just threaten Maxville, but the home of his wife and son, Battle joined the heroes team to take her down and save the city. Will, Magenta, Ethan, Layla, Zach, and of course Warren, all got to work along side the infamous supervillain for one once-in-a-lifetime team-up. 

Over the course of the adventure, they got to witness exactly how Barron Battle’s powers worked. 

He could heal from any wound almost instantly –there was a little delay for more severe wounds, obviously. And he could revive from the dead after being killed. Eleven years ago, when the Commander and Jetstream defeated Battle (the event which landed him in jail in the first place), they stabbed him seven times in the chest between the two of them. They killed Battle. But he was still alive and well. The only caveat seemed to be that whatever weapon that was used to kill him had to be removed from the body before it could return to life. Rather hard to remain alive with a broken segment or rebar through the heart. Kinda gets in the way of pumping all that blood. That, and healing the body, or coming back from the dead burned a lot of calories. Battle had to eat a lot –mostly meat- afterwards in order to make up for it. 

If Barron Battle got his powers from his father, then it stood to reason than the same rules applied. Will was probably right. Even if Granddaddy Battle had revived after whatever kind of death-blow 17-year-old Barron Battle dealt, he would have still been trapped underground. Cut off from food to refuel him, or any kind of help. Even if the old man revived, after thirty years, he would have succumb to starvation by this point. The body buried on the property had to be a dead body. 

So, no undead super popping out of the ground to say ‘Boo!’

“Anyway, it’s no big deal. Let’s get to work.” Warren urged the others. Determined not to be bothered by his father’s sordid past. “Since I’m the one with the fire, I’ll work on the house, while you guys get started on the driveway. Stronghold is holding a chainsaw, it’s the one in the plastic case next to the tent bag. Since Slick was the first to bring up murder flick tropes, he gets to work with that.-“ Ethan did not look enthused. “-Everyone else, I brought axes.”

Will handed the chainsaw case to Ethan. He doubled over from its weight. Setting the plastic case on the ground, he unlatched it, moved aside the rental paperwork that said since Warren Peace was the renter, Warren Peace was the only one allowed to use the tool –for insurance reasons- and took out the chainsaw. He hefted it in his hands, still feeling uncomfortable. “This weighs almost as much as I do.”

Magenta picked up an axe. “Is this why you scheduled our trip up here for a time when Layla couldn’t come along?” 

She asked, giving the axe an experimental swing at the nearest tree. Zach wasn’t standing anywhere near the path of the blade, but he still jumped away from her before the axe collided with the tree. It made a muted, and yet somehow unnerving crack-THUNK against the bark. The bark chipped and fell away from the trunk when Magenta pulled the blade back out again. 

There was no way in hell Layla would approve of chopping down trees. Not even to clear one small stretch of road to create a driveway up to their communal hero-base. 

Magenta and Ethan’s eyes met and, without any words being exchanged, they switched tools. Ethan taking the axe, and Magenta hefting the chainsaw. She pulled the cord, revving up the engine and filling the words with a roaring sound. Her grin was almost villainish. Layla might not approve, but Layla wasn’t here and Magenta was going to enjoy this. 

“Cutting down trees without Layla around had nothing to-“ Warren began, then realized he had to speak louder to be heard over the roar of the chainsaw. “Cutting down trees without Layla around to object had nothing to do with it! The city’s finally recovering from the quake and now we have time to-“ she revved the chainsaw again and he had to raise his voice louder “-and now we have time to work on other things!”

Magenta brought the blade of the saw against the trunk of the nearest tree to her, right over her first mark from the axe. 

It wasn’t as fast as in the movies. The reciprocating blade did not slice through the trunk like butter. More like digging into dense clay. Difficult, and requiring of force and muscle. Finally, the tree began to fall. Branches crashing against branches as it knocked and scrapped the surrounding trees on its way down, finally bouncing on the forest floor. 

Magenta cut the engine on the chainsaw and flashed Warren a devilish smile. 

The pyrokinetic just gave a weary sigh. “Just don’t drop a tree on the car.” He told her. “That’s a rental too.”

Turning his back on Magenta –and Ethan and Zach who watched her with mild horror- Warren marched up to the collapsed and rotted house. He jerked his arms, both igniting with bright flames. 

“Whoa!” Will jumped between Warren and the structure. “You’re just gonna light it up!”

“Yeah.” Warren sounded impatient. 

“But, like, that’s your dad’s childhood home.” The younger man reminded him. “Don’t you wanna, I donno, explore it a bit?”

Both men looked at the structure –if the word ‘structure’ could even be applied to it. 

“Stronghold, it’s a ruin.” Warren informed him. “There’s nothing to explore.”

Floating over the rotting building, Will lifted the collapsed roof. Or, rather, he started to lift the collapsed roof. But it was so rotted that it just broke apart. The edge Will held breaking off in his hands, and the rest of it collapsing in on itself through the middle. Flattening the house even further. 

Warren flashed his friend a withering look. 

“Okay.” Will gave up. Floating out of the other man’s way. “Burn away.”

Warren was almost smug when he walked up to the broken porch and touched the wooden railing. 

It took a while for the wood to catch. It was old, rotted, and porous. But it was also wet. The fire had to dry it before Warren could actually burn it. Once it did catch, the spread of the fire was slow. Warren tried to bolster it by lending the flames some of his own energy. Adding fire to fire. 

Once it did spread, it was a roaring blaze. Flames climbing high into the air. Warren had to switch gears from feeding the fire, to controlling it. Keeping it contained. Only burning the house. Preventing it from spreading to the rest of the woods. 

Will just hovered behind his friend, gawking at it in awe. 

“Ya know, Stronghold, you could help the others with clearing the driveway.” Warren growled at the younger man. 

Rolling his eyes, Will floated over to his other three friends. The thrill and novelty of wielding a chainsaw seemed to have worn off for Magenta and chopping down trees had become just as much of an uncomfortable chore for her as it was for Zach and Ethan whom were wielding simple axes. Will wrapped his arms around the closest tree that didn’t already have someone working on it, and pulled the massive thing out of the ground, roots and all. He hovered in the air for a moment, not sure what to do with the large tree he’d just uprooted. 

Then Will looked back at the remains of the house Warren was burning. 

“Woah! Fuck!” Warren exclaimed when a giant tree dropped down from the sky on top of his fire. 

“Don’t say the f-word.” Will floated down next to him. “It’s not heroic.”

Warren wasn’t listening to him. He was now running around the blaze, chasing the sparks Will threw up when he dropped the tree. Fire was easy to manipulate and control when it was all concentrated in one blaze. But once it started to spread, the fire user had to divide their attention and move fast. Snatch up the heat of the sparks before they could catch on surrounding trees or underbrush. 

Luckily, the surrounding woods –like the house itself- were wet, and didn’t catch easily. Warren was able to catch and put out all the errant sparks before any damage could be done. 

“What the hell, Stronghold!?” He demanded when he was done.

“Sorry.” Will sounded indignant, even to his own ears. 

“How long have we been friends!” Warren snarled. 

“Uh, well, uh, five years.” The younger man supplied, not sure where Warren was going with this. 

“And in that time, did you learn anything about fire safety?” The pyrokinetic all but shouted. 

Will was about to make a comment about the best fire safety was to not piss off fire wielder. But that was definitely not the answer Warren was looking for and would go against the rule of not upsetting the pyrokinetic. Instead, Will cast his brain about for actual fire safety rules they tried to teach him in elementary school. Stop, drop, and roll. Don’t play around the stove. Ask Mom and Dad to light candles… The Maxville school system was not very good. 

“Uh…” 

Warren only groaned. “Never mind. Just no more dropping large things on top of other large burning things!”

“Yes, sir!” For some reason, Will gave a salute. 

Warren rolled his eyes. 

They worked like that for several hours. Warren keeping the fire controlled while he burned what was left of Barron Battle’s childhood home down to the foundations. Will, Magenta, Ethan, and Zach clearing the driveway so that the next time they all came up here, they could drive the car right up to the house –or whatever there was in place of the house. 

It was early evening when the others started to get tired, and Warren’s blaze was finally starting to subside, having burred up all that there was to burn. It was now just a pile of dark ash. Only a few scattered pockets of glowing embers. Warren stirred it, giving oxygen to the parts that were still smoldering, and scooping up dead ash that could no longer support live flame. 

After ignoring his friend’s protests, Will helped the pyrokinetic clear the ash off the concrete foundation. He shoveled it into a stainless steel bucket and emptied it far behind the house near the tree line. The ground was still wet, but after getting yelled at once for poor fire safety, he took the extra step of spreading out the ashes and turning the soil to make sure everything was smothered and dowsed. 

Magenta, Ethan, and Zach abandoned their project of clearing what would eventually become their driveway to help clear the burned ash. Warren said the foundation was where they were going to pitch the tents and sleep, and they were all tired and ready to lay down. 

With the four of them shoveling and dumping, and Warren making sure everything they took and tossed in the woods was out, no longer smoldering, and safe to be dumped in a heavily wooded area, they managed to get the foundation almost completely cleared before it got completely dark. But everyone was completely exhausted. 

The only parts of the house that were left where the concrete foundation, the un-collapsed portion of the stone façade from the outer wall, and the stone chimney. Warren and Magenta started pitching the tents while Will, Ethan, and Zach swept the last of the ash and dust off.

Finally, they were all able to spread out their sleeping bags and lay down. 

“You guys are sleepy?” Warren asked. “It’s, like, barely after five!”

“Oh, shove it!” Magenta was unsympathetic. “All you did was stand in front of a bonfire all day. We did the hard work.”

Zach and Ethan grumbled something along this same sentiment. Even Will did more manual labor than Warren did. Admittedly, on account of his super-strength, Will did not seem quite as exhausted as they were, but he’d at least done more work than their moody pyrokinetic friend, and thus, was more entitled to their respect in this case. 

“You mean you guys don’t wanna roast marshmallows and tell scary stories?” To illustrate this, Warren held up a bag of large marshmallows, and a box of gram crackers. “Isn’t that what all you touchy-feely types do? Make smores and sing Kumbaya.”

“Oh, shove an icicle in whatever inappropriate place your ex-girlfriend used to shove her ice in.” Magenta tried to sound hostile, but she yawned right in the middle, and so only succeeded in sounding as tired as she felt. She flopped down on her sleeping bag and zipped the tent shut before Warren could respond. “Ugh. That didn’t sound as satisfying as slamming a door.”

With a bit of a sigh, Will placed an empathetic hand on Warren’s shoulder. “I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but right now isn’t the time for you to try and be sociable.” 

After spending half his life without friends, and only five years with friends (the first year against his will), Warren Peace hadn’t fully figured out yet when was an appropriate time to socialize and when to leave them alone and let people rest. They had no problems recognizing when he needed space. But he was still trying to figure them out. Warren sometimes had to take his social ques from Will. 

With an almost microscopic nod, the pyrokinetic dropped the subject. He stowed the marshmallows and gram crackers in a plastic cooler. 

All the boys piled into their tent for the night.

…

Inevitably, someone had to get up to pee in the middle of the night. 

Zach unzipped the tent and stepped outside. It was so much colder outside the tent. In the mountain air, with moving air, and a chill mountain breeze. Laying next to Warren was like sleeping pressed against a furnace. Zach shivered when pulled himself out of his pajama pants to do his business. 

The breeze was light. But it was still enough to move the thinner or weaker tree branches. The sound of leaves rustling against leaves gave the uncomfortable impression of voices whispering. Like a susurrus heard through a door. Just enough to for the mind to register the sound as human speech, but nothing clear enough as to be identified as actual words. 

It raised the hair on the back of the light user’s neck. He was reminded that there was supposed to be a body buried somewhere on this property. A body that was either buried alive, or killed by Warren’s dad. That’s gotta leave a person feeling vengeful. Whether Grandaddy Battle was still alive, revived by his superpower, or a ghost haunting the woods. 

He was already cold, but Zach felt an entirely different kind of chill run down his spine when he imagined the vengeful ghost of someone killed by Barron Battle and buried in an unmarked grave. 

Unconsciously, Zach turned up his superpower from ‘resting baseline ambient glow’ to ‘light up the night’. 

Within the small sphere of the clearing where the house used to stand, and the surrounding tree line, it was almost like daylight. The sun shining in the center of the forest. Zach could see every blade of grass, every pile of ash Will and Warren tried to spread around, every trunk of the trees surrounding the clearing, and just a little bit beyond the trees. Just to the edge of where the darkness of the night started to take hold of the landscape again. 

And Zach saw movement. 

He wasn’t sure at first. He experienced a spark of adrenaline, and blinked. 

The movement was so quick he wasn’t sure what it was he saw dart out of sight. 

A pale figure. Skeletal but not a skeleton. Ashen skin stretched over thick bones. Tall. Human in shape. Two arms. Two legs. One head. Long hair, white, but dirty and matted, tumbling down its back and over its face. Beard and facial hair just as long. Making the figure look more animal than man. The eyes reflected a wrong color when Zach’s light hit them. 

For one heart-stopping moment, it looked like the figure had been coming towards their camp before Zach’s light shone on it. 

But it darted out of sight again before he could be sure. 

Zach couldn’t even be sure if what he saw was what he thought he saw. It was so fast. There and gone.

Some kind of cryptid? Zach was a city boy, he didn’t know what kinds of mutants or monsters might live in these woods. Some poor forest creature mutated and transformed by a mad scientist supervillain, or a human who suffered a similar fate. Something that escaped a secret lab when the mad doctor was defeated by a hero, and was never swept up by the clean-up teams. Or… or the vengeful wight of the body burred up here in an unmarked grave. 

“Gawd! Turn your brightness down!” Magenta groaned from the girl tent. “You don’t need to light up the night just to pee. I promise nothing’s gonna jump up and bite it off.”

“I saw something!” Zach didn’t mean to shout. But his adrenaline was pumping and he didn’t realize his volume until the words were already out of his mouth. 

“You guys, tents don’t actually block sound.” Ethan’s voice grumbled, still groggy from sleep. 

“What are we all shouting about?” Will was waking up too.

“Zach’s freaking out because he saw something.” Magenta unzipped her tent and crawled out. She stood next to her friend, squinting because he was so very, very bright. Blinking, the shapeshifter turned her attention from the man next to her, to the tree line his eyes were fixed on. “I see woods.”

“Something moved!” He told her. Zach’s hand reached out blindly to grab hers. He squeezed tight. Taking comfort in her proximity. Her calm demeanor and air of skepticism helping to calm his nerves. They were all superheroes after all. And there was five of them. There was no reason to fear things that go bump in the night. 

Magenta peered hard at the woods. Eyes searching just beyond the tree line for something that could have spooked her friend as much as he appeared to be spooked. The breeze was light. But it was still strong enough to move the thinner branches of the trees, and the taller grasses and underbrush. “Please tell me you’re not freaking out because of the wind.”

More groans were head from the boys’ tent and Will and Ethan climbed out to join Zach and Magenta. All four of them lined up shoulder to shoulder, studying the tree line and what little of the woods beyond Zach’s light could penetrate. 

Finally, Warren came out to join them. “What are we all making a big deal about?”

“Zach’s freaking out because the wind moved a bush.” Magenta explained. 

“It wasn’t a bush!” Zach insisted. “It was a… a… uh…” He cast his brain around searching for a word to describe what he saw that wouldn’t be met with derision. He sure as hell wasn’t going to tell the group he saw a ghost or a zombie. But it didn’t look like an animal either. He didn’t wanna say ‘person’ because any non-undead person lost in the woods would just come up to them for help, not dark back into the shadows. “On legs.” Zach finally decided. “I saw something that walked on two legs.”

Ethan readjusted his glasses on his face. “I don’t see anything, dude.”

Will floated several feet above the group to get a different vantage point. “I don’t see anything either.”

Four of them standing on the edge of the concrete foundation, Will hovering above them, all five fixed their eyes on the woods. Zach glowing as bright as he could. Somehow, he managed to transfer a fraction of his nerves to each of them. There was an indistinct tension in the air. 

Some much so that Ethan shivered, not from cold, but from his body wanting to revert to liquid as part of his ‘fight or flight’ response. 

Warren even lit his fists on fire, not that the light could do anything more than what Zach’s light was already doing for them. It was just his own ‘fight or flight’ response at work. He was not immune to the collective tension in the air. 

Everyone stopped talking. Almost holding their breaths with suspense as they watched the woods. 

Now they were all hearing the trees whispering as the wind rustled their leaves. 

All eyes fixed on the trees. Noting every movement of the underbrush. Every bend of grass. Every shudder of bushes. The wind flattening the vegetation. A rabbit skittering into its hole. Anything that could be seen before their small sphere of vision was once again swallowed up by darkness. 

Aside from the whispers of trees, the woods were eerily silent. No birds. No insects. No larger mammals. Just… quiet. 

Then. All at once. 

There was a rumbling. Just before a herd of deer came galloping out of the woods. Full grown adult bucks with multi-pronged antlers. Adolescent males who’s antlers were still coming in. Does, urging their still-spotted fawns forward, dipping their snouts low to physically push them on the rump. There was a hast to the whole herd, a hast that bordered on panic. As if they were fleeing a predator. 

The herd came galloping right for the foundation they were standing on. 

Without hesitating, Warren jumped in front of the rest of his friends. The flames of his fists spreading to the rest of his arms and over his chest. He flared his fire large and wide, scaring the leaders of the herd enough to change their course. Veering to the side and arching back into the woods. They might be fleeing a predator, but they still knew to fear fire too. 

When the last doe, head-butting her fawn in the tail, finally passed them and disappeared back into the trees, Warren extinguished his flames. 

“Well.” He huffed. “That solves the mystery of what Glowstick saw moving.”

He climbed back up onto the foundation, unzipped the tent, and crawled back into his sleeping bag. 

Everyone else seemed to agree with this explanation. The thing that Zach saw moving in the woods was a scared deer. He just freaked out because it was dark. Everyone else followed their pyrokinetic friend back into their respective sleeping bags. Zach among them because he did not want to be left outside alone. 

But he was absolutely sure that what he saw was not a deer. 

Deer did not walk upright on two legs.


	2. Grave Encounters

It was cold in the morning. Some might even be so bold as to say it was freezing. 

All Warren knew was that everyone was cuddled up close to him when he woke up. 

“What the hell!?” He would have sat up, except that Will was splayed across his chest weighting him down. 

“Mm, the heater’s talking…” Ethan muttered, still clearly in the throes of a dream. 

“So warm…” Will sighed, mouth so close to Warren’s shoulder, he was almost kissing the other man’s neck. 

Zach pressed himself up against the half of Will that was not laying on top of Warren, trying to get closer to the warmth. 

“I gotta say, it’s a lot warmer in here than it was in my tent.” Magenta’s voice cut through, shocking the boys out of their sleepy haze and catapulting them into full waking. 

“Magenta!” They all shouted, but with varying shades of shock, mortification, embarrassment, or modesty. 

“This is the boy’s tent!” Ethan reminded her. 

“You can’t be in here.” Zach informed her.

She crossed her arms over her chest with a huff. “Oh, like I’ve never seen a naked boy before.”

They were all wearing pajamas. So, no naked men were present. 

“Get out! All of you!” Warren shoved Will off himself and sat up. “Get off me and get out!”

They all fell out of the tent in a pile. Almost falling off the concrete foundation it was pitched on. It was much, much colder outside the tent without Warren’s fire-super body heat to keep them warm. There was a light fog over the ground that the morning sun had just barely started burning away. 

Seeing the mist swirl and undulate over the ground, something they rarely –if ever- saw in the city- mysterious and almost ethereal looking. Like something from another world. They were all reminded of Zach’s strange panic from the previous night, and the even stranger stampede of terrified deer that came charging out of the woods. 

Crawling out of the pile of bodies, Magenta reached a hand back into the girl tent and pulled out her boots. Slipping them hastily on her feet, she hopped off the foundation and padded through the mist towards the tree line. 

“Hey! Where are you going?” Zach called after her. 

“I’m going to see if I can find what we were all making such a big deal about last night!” She called back.

“But it might be dangerous!” Zach shouted.

“Jee, if only I were a superhero or something-!” Her back was to them, but they could all hear her rolling her eyes with that statement. 

Warren stepped out of the tent, still wearing the shirt he’d slept in, but having traded out his pajama pants for jeans. He pulled his own boots on over his feet before jumping off the concrete foundation. 

“And where are you going?” Will asked him. 

“I’m going with the Guinea Pig.” He told them, as if this should have been obvious. “I grew up in a big city, I don’t know anything about mountains and woods. But something scared the shit out of those deer last night. Whatever it is, I feel like it’s something we should know about if we’re gonna have a base up here.”

Can’t argue with that logic. 

Warren caught up with Magenta at the tree line. 

They navigated through the underbrush together. The woods were much, much denser on this side of the property. Almost opposite from the driveway they had cleared the previous day. Virgin, unspoiled wilderness. Allowed to grow wild for far longer than just thirty years. The trees were taller, their roots thicker, the underbrush more tangled and teeming with small creatures. 

“Wish we got cell service up here.” Magenta commented, pulling out her phone. “Otherwise I’d just Google common things that scare idiots in the woods.”

“You’d probably just get a bunch of bigfoot and chupacabra conspiracy theories.” Warren scoffed. 

“I guess…” She trailed off, nose twitching very much like a rodent catching a scent. “Do you smell that?”

He gave a loud sniff, inhaling the crisp mountain air. It was chilly, colder than what he was used to living on the valley floor. The scent of pine, wet earth, that smell that came off lettuce when it got old and slimy –rotting leaves, Warren supposed. He didn’t smell anything one wouldn’t expect to smell in the woods. 

Magenta started sprinting off, arching off their original course. 

Following her, Warren finally smelled whatever it was she was smelling just before he caught up to her. A thick pungent stink. Like rotting meat. But so much worse than just rotting meat. This wasn’t a tupperwear container of unseasoned chicken his mother left in the fridge too long. This was large, and putrid, and… Warren coughed and gagged. Recently dead did not smell like this. Dying himself, he did not smell like this. This was decay. 

The air was thick with flies, and he lit one hand on fire to try and bat them away. 

The ground was still covered in a light layer of mist. But it was thinner now as the day wore on. Jutting up out of the sheet of mist were three rib bones. Bent and sticking up at odd angles. 

“Ugh!” Warren covered his nose and mouth with his other hand. “Was this what scared the deer?”

Magenta waved a hand to try and clear the mist. Honestly the heat coming off of Warren probably did more to improve visibility than anything she did. The fog cleared enough for them to see the remains of what had previously been an animal. 

The chest cracked open, and ribs spread. Stomach and guts burst. Sandy brown fur still covering the legs and head. Eyes eaten out by maggots. Laying in muddy soil created from its own putrid fluids. But it looked like the remains were the body of a deer. An adolescent male, considering his barely presenting antlers. 

Magenta also covered her nose. “This is pretty scary. But I don’t think this is what panicked the herd. They would have just steered clear of this spot. Not stampeded away. That kind of behavior is fleeing a predator, not avoiding a dead body.”

She would know. Magenta was just as much of a city kid as any of them were. But she was a city kid with the superpower to shapeshift into a small rodent-type prey-animal. She had her own share of prey instincts, and understood animal behavior. 

“So… something comes up and attacks this one.” Warren guessed. “The rest of them panic and come charging at us.”

“No. Look at how gross this is.” Magenta shook her head. “This one’s been dead a while. Way longer than just last night.”

“How long?” He asked. 

“I donno.” She snapped. “I’m not an animal cornier.” 

“So, what should we do?” Warren asked. 

Magenta shrugged, unconcerned. “Nothing. Let the forest take it. Things die all the time.”

Warren was just fine with that. He had no great desire to touch a body that had been dead so long that it was slimy, rotten, and covered in bugs. But that actually wasn’t what he meant when he asked that question. “I mean, we don’t actually know what scared the herd and made them come charging at us. I mean, the Glowstick’s kinda a whimp, but he still went through all the same training we went through and he is an active superhero. He says he saw something. Maybe we should believe him.”

“He said it stood on two legs.” Magenta pointed out. “You’re not actually going to suggesting Zach saw Bigfood last night, and that Bigfood scared a bunch of deer.”

“No.” The pyrokinetic was quick to assure her. There was no need to jump on the fanciful when a much more rational conclusion could be found. “Bears can stand on two feet, and they’re predators. It could have been a bear. Maybe one has a den or something close to here.”

That explanation seemed to make sense. 

With a silent nod of agreement, they both turned and made their way back through the woods. With the ground-fog burning off as the day grew warmer and the mist clearing, it was easier to see the path left by the stampede. Underbrush and grass flattened, low hanging branches broken. True to what Magenta had said, the herd was not anywhere near the old and rotting dead adolescent when they got spooked. 

Exchanging another look of silent agreement, they followed the stampede trail. 

It ended at another body. 

This one very, very fresh. Definitely from the previous night. 

A doe this time. Coat still vibrant with color. Golden brown. Thick and healthy. Eyes open, wide. Animal expressions weren’t as easy to read as human faces, but the wide, open eyes and still open mouth, as if screaming in distress showed that she was terrified when she died. But that was not the most unsettling thing about the doe’s dead body. It was that the doe’s ribs were pulled and bent. The chest cavity opened. Lungs and esophagus left untouched, the only thing missing was the heart. 

Most predators would have eaten the outer muscles first. The rump and flanks. Or the shoulders and sides. The throat, even. But the things inside the ribcage were harder to get to. Protected by bone that had to be broken and ripped out of the way. The ribcage and the things inside it would be the last things a predator would go for. Not the only thing. 

But it definitely wasn’t a human hunter either. The fact that hunting doe was banned by the Maxville Department of Fish and Wildlife aside, a hunter would have taken the kill. As a trophy, or to properly gut and butcher the meat. If a person brings down a large animal, they’re gonna wanna keep it. It’s just human nature. Even vegans who accidentally hit a deer with their Prius report the accident. 

“You think a bear did this too?” Magenta asked, voice skeptical and clearly conveying that she did not believe for one moment that it was a normal predator native to the woods. 

Bears would have left claw marks.

Wolves would have left bite marks. 

A predator would have gone for the throat to kill, or the hind legs to prevent escape. But both those areas were virtually untouched. It was as if whatever killed her had come upon her suddenly, without warning, and killed her instantly. 

A bit of the tension from the previous night crept back into them. The anxiety of the unknown. The fear of a threat they couldn’t identify. Irrationally, for reasons they couldn’t explain, they both felt something watching them. Close by, but somewhere they couldn’t see… 

“Creepy…” A voice mutter from somewhere above them. 

Both Warren and Magenta jumped. 

“Son of a-“

“Dah sah ney!” 

Warren’s hands lit up with flames. 

Magenta assumed a defensive combat stance, her nose twitching like a concerned rodent trying to catch a scent. 

They looked up to see Will hovering over them, also looking down at the dead deer. 

“Walk, Stronghold!” Warren snarled. “On your feet. We can’t hear you when you float like that!”

“Sorry.” Will sounded indignant. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’m not scared!” Insisted the pyrokinetic, voice a higher octave than normal. Will totally scared him. “You just surprised us.”

Both Will and Magenta gave him skeptical glances. Making eye contact before looking him up and down so that Warren understood without the shadow of a misunderstanding that he wasn’t fooling anyone. People who were not scared did not speak as loudly as he was. Nor did their voice use so high an octave. 

“Swinging back on point…” Magenta decided to take mercy on their fiery friend and pull attention back off of him. “Looks like there’s some kind of rib-spreading, heart-stealing, two-legged monster stalking the woods around Daddy Battle’s murder cabin.”

“Don’t call him ‘Daddy’.” Warren pleaded. “His name is Dad.” A pause. “I mean, it’s Barron. But I always called him ‘Dad’.” Another pause. “It should be ‘Mr. Battle’, to you.” 

Will rolled his eyes. “Calling the place a ‘murder cabin’ you’re A-okay with, but someone refers to your dad as ‘daddy’ and you’ll be having none of that.”

Warren said nothing. Just crossed his –still burning- arms over his chest and gave a silent groan. 

“Okay, but if there’s something lurking around the murder cabin murdering things, maybe we should investigate before building a base here.” Magenta made what she felt was a very logical and rational suggestion. 

No superhero should want something killing things in fairly gruesome ways lurking around their base, and it was a little disconcerting that neither Warren nor Will had made the suggestion to investigate. Will was the sort of official-unofficial leader of their group, and Warren was… well, Warren. But, instead, they would rather tease each other. Some great pair of leaders they were. 

“We should search the woods.” Will agreed. 

“Do you actually know anything about hunting?” Warren gave the other man his most skeptical glare. 

Dark eyes staring from behind the curtain of his hair. It was a look very similar to the ones he used to give Will back when they were still rivals. It was a genre of expressions Warren seemed to now reserve only for when his friend said or did something he thought was really, really stupid. Like wandering into dense woods they were unfamiliar with and could get easily lost in, to look for a villain or monster they knew nothing about and could easily be injured –or killed- trying to subdue. 

“Do you?” Magenta shot back, giving the pyrokinetic a glare of her own. Eyes squinting with skepticism, as if to find Warren that he was just as much of a dumb city kid as they were and he didn’t know anything about hunting either. 

“Actually, kinda.” The pyrokinetic informed them, sounding imperious. “During the summers, before Dad went to jail, my family would go camping in the North Hills. Dad took me hunting a couple of times.”

Both Will and Magenta crossed their arms over their chests, planted their feet in mirror images of each other’s stances, and gave Warren identical looks. 

“When you were nine?”

Barron Battle was arrested and sentenced to multiple lives in prison when Warren was only nine. Still very much a child. No parent in their right mind –not even a supervillain- would take a child that young on any version of a ‘serious’ hunting trip. Hiking in the hills while also just so happening to carry weapons, maybe. That was something they could both easily imagine Barron Battle doing with his son –especially after meeting him last year during his impromptu break out. But not actually making a child run-down and kill something. 

“Yeah.” Warren insisted. “It was my job to reload the crossbow.”

Magenta brought her hands together and sucked in a breath, almost as if she were practicing a calming yoga technique. “I have so many follow-up question.” That was muttered more to herself. To Warren, she met his eyes with a challenge. “Alright, then. Let’s see some hunting.”

“What?” The pyrokinetic blinked at her. 

“C’mon.” Insisted Magenta. “Hunt for us. Which way did the thing that did this go? The herd went that way-“ she pointed down the path of bent grass and broken branches left in the wake of the stampede “-which way did our predator go?”

“Well, I-“ Warren stammered. 

He pursed his lips, refusing to back down to a challenge. Neither of his parents ever backed down from a challenge (even when they should), stubbornness was a family tradition –on both the Peace and Battle sides. He looked around where they were standing, hoping to see something that might spark of memory of decade old lessons he had only half paid attention to. 

There was plenty of evidence of creature movement. The deer left a clear enough path. But if they wanted to track and find whatever it was that ripped this one’s chest open and panicked the rest of the herd, he needed to find some evidence of something other than deer. 

“That.” Warren finally pointed. 

“What?” Neither Magenta not Will saw anything where he was pointing.

Crossing the space, Warren lifted one broken branch, still hanging off the tree by a few stubborn strands of bark. It was on almost the exact opposite end from where the stampede had started. 

“The deer didn’t do this.” He told them, rather proud of himself for remembering how to spot evidence of his quarry from a ten-year-old lesson he hadn’t been particularly interested in at the time. “This was caused by something else moving the opposite way.”

“How do you know?” Magenta pressed. 

“It’s just a broken branch.” Will pointed out. “It’s not exactly a smoking gun.” 

Now the pyrokinetic was just frustrated. “Look, the Guinea Pig asked me which direction it went. I’m saying it went that way.”

Will sighed. “Alright, well, let’s go get Ethan and Zach and head that way.”

Yup. Ethan called it. Five idiots walk into the woods... 

…

It was slow goings. 

Warren hadn’t tracked anything since he was nine years old, and even then, it was his father that did the actual tracking. Warren just followed him carrying spare crossbow bolts and the crank to reset the bowstring. He paused at every broken twig, every over turned rock, every smudge on a tree, or bent blade of grass. But there was no way for him –or any of them- to know if it was caused by what they were looking for, another animal, the wind, or just the normal wear and tear of forest life. 

Nobody seemed very impressed by Warren’s poor hunting skills. Everyone was impatient and frustrated. Traipsing around woods they didn’t know, working around very little sleep, looking for a creature of unknown kind, basically acting out a bad horror movie. Zach complained the whole way. 

Whatever they were ‘tracking’ would have heard them coming a mile away or more. Five of them stomping loudly through the woods. No idea what they were doing. Moaning and groaning the whole way. Their quarry would have been able to easily evade them. It would know exactly where they were, which direction they were going, and how fast –or slowly, as the case may be- they were moving. Whatever they were tracking could easily avoid them. 

That was assuming they were even following a trail at all. For all any of them knew, Warren was just taking them in circles. Hell! For all Warren knew, he was just leading them all in circles. He was working off a few memories of lessons he never really paid attention to. He had no idea what he was doing. 

Finally, he sighed. It was time to swallow his pride and admit he didn’t actually know how to hunt or track. 

“That’s great.” Ethan said, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and sounding anything but enthused. Clearly, he did not feel that Warren admitting his failings at this exact moment was, in fact, ‘great’. “Now how do we get back to the murder cabin –and the car?”

“Uh…?” 

They all look around. They’d been walking so long and taken so many twists and turns that none of them knew which direction they’d come from anymore. None of them knew which direction the cabin was in. 

They were lost. 

“Don’t worry, guys, I got this.” Will assured everyone. 

He leapt into the air, flying through the thick canopy of trees to get a hawk’s eye view of the woods. The concrete foundation where they made camp –the location of Barron Battle’s old house- had been in a clearing. Their tents were bright colors. Plus, they cut down a considerable number of trees yesterday. Will should see evidence of that too. 

There was actually more evidence of trees being cut than he expected. Long and wide stretched of mountain side cut completely clear. Trees and brush. The only evidence that it hadn’t always been barren land, stacks logs. Neatly stripped of their branches and arranged in uniform piles, waiting to be loaded onto freight trucks. 

Will cast his eyes around for something a little less industrial looking. For just a small driveway that lead up to a clearing with two bright nylon tents pitched on a concrete slab. 

Not far from the clear-cut area, the next quadrant over, or however they divided up the logging land on the mountain, there was another site where the cutting seemed to have been suspended. Having above it, Will saw a logging truck and several chain saws, all left where they were. The whole space roped off with bright yellow tape that said ‘DO NOT CROSS’ very clearly. It almost looked like a crime scene. But that was absurd. A crime scene in the middle of the woods? 

Finally, he found their clearing. Warren’s family property. With its concrete foundation, their nylon tents, and the short line of tree stumps that would eventually be the driveway up to their base. 

Will flew back down to the rest of the group. 

“Okay, so we’re a bit farther from camp than I thought. But I can fly us all back.” He told them. 

“All of us?” Ethan asked. There were five of them. Will was strong, but he only had two arms. Surly he didn’t mean to carry four people at once. 

“Two at a time.” He clarified, giving his best, most reassuring, ‘I know what I’m doing, I’m a hero’ smile. It was not as reassuring as he thought it was. 

“I vote Warren goes last!” Zach’s hand shot up as if they were still in school and he was asking a question in class. 

“Seconded!” Magenta added before the pyrokinetic could object. “Sorry, but if you bring us up to your dad’s murder cabin, then get us lost in the woods, then you have to stay behind while the rest of us are flown back to camp.” 

Warren didn’t so much speak an agreement, as groan a wordless growl of defeat. He could have pointed out that it was Magenta who goaded him into ‘proving’ that he could hunt –something that they now concluded he could not do- or that they all came up to the murder cabin in the mountains together because they were going to turn the property in their shared Hero Sanctum. But he didn’t. They wouldn’t have listened to him anyway even if he had. 

“Alright.” Will clapped his hands once, as if the matter was settled amicably. “Who’s first?”

“I’ll go.” Zach, Magenta, and Ethan all raised their hands at once. 

“Okay, well I don’t think I can carry three people.” Will had to admit. “So, someone’s gonna have to stay and wait with Warren.”

Warren swept his eyes over the trio, trying to decide which of the three irritated him the least. The Glowstick talked too much, the Guinea Pig was hostile, and Slick was unnecessarily nervous about everything. 

In the end, the three of them decided by Rock, Paper, Scisors. Zach lost, and Will carried Ethan and Magenta back to camp. 

“So…” Zach shifted his weight from foot to foot. He wasn’t sure which made him more nervous, the unknown monster in the woods, or the pyrokinetic standing next to him glaring how he used to glare back when they were all still enemies. “Magenta and I aren’t together anymore.” He blurted out without prompting. “In case you were wondering why I didn’t sleep in the girl tent with her last night.”

Warren hadn’t been wondering. 

“What did you see last night?” Asked the pyrokinetic instead. “You said it walked on two legs. But what did it look like?”

“Oh, uh, well, uh.” He fidgeted under Warren’s intense gaze. They might all be friends now, but Warren Peace was still very intense, and very intimidating. He was the kind of guy that made you believe he could grill you with a look. Actually, considering he had fire powers, he probably could grill you with a look. “It looked like it could have been a person. It was tall. Like, as tall as you or me. But skinny. Very, very skinny. Like it… like it was just bone with skin pulled over it.”

Warren snorted. “Tall and bone thin, like Slender Man? You’re telling me you saw Slender Man in the woods.”

“No.” Zach insisted. “Slender Man always wears a suit. This thing was naked. It was skeleton-skinny, and had really, really long hair. White, like an old person’s. Long, like it had been growing for a while, and all tangled and dirty –like muddy.”

Warren thought about that for a second. “Did it occur to you that what you thought was a monster in the night could have been someone that has been lost in the woods for a while and might’ve needed our help?”

Now it was Zach’s turn to think about that. When he first turned his glow up and saw the creature, it looked like it was coming towards them. Coming to the camp. To their tents. To people. People who could give it help. Maybe when it saw that Zach had superpowers, it got spooked and ran away. Didn’t know if they were superheroes or supervillains, and didn’t want to take its chances with unknown supers. Once again, Zach wondered if it was some kind of mad scientist’s experiment that escaped a villain’s lair. Something that might be wearing of supers for fear of being hurt again. Experimented on by villains, or beaten-up by heroes. 

Except… that wasn’t the vibe he got off it. 

And he wasn’t the only one to get that vibe. Everyone felt a little nervous or even scared last night. Their instincts were telling them there was danger near. They might be city folk, but they were still superheroes. They had fairly good instincts. They were taught to trust their instincts. 

Zach shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think it really is some kind of monster. Did your dad ever mention anything about a cryptid or escaped experiment stalking the woods around where he lived?”

“Dad doesn’t really talk about his childhood much.” Warren admitted. He thought about the little bit his father had told him after they dispatched Faultline. Battle explained a little bit about his powers –about their power- and told Warren about the first time he died and came back. About how the first person to kill him was his own father –Warren’s grandfather. Hardwin Battle. “It wasn’t fun for him.”

Giving a non-committal nod, Zach averted his eyes. Warren had already told them that Barron Battle ‘killed’ –or as close to killed as was possible- his own father and buried him on the property. While that did not sound at all out of character for a supervillain, they had all met Mr. Battle last year when he escaped after an earthquake. The man was a little quirky, and –yeah- he made them uncomfortable at times. But he was not a mad man that killed indiscriminately. He killed for money, and he killed to protect the woman he loved and their son, and he killed for revenge. If Barron Battle killed his own father at the age of seventeen, and did not like to talk about his childhood before that, it stood to reason that –maybe- Granddaddy Battle wasn’t a very nice man. 

“Your dad got his powers from his father, right?” Zach finally asked, an entirely different idea occurring to him. 

“Yeah…?” Warren asked, not sure where the younger man was going with this. 

Before Zach could elaborate on his theory, Will returned. 

Shaking the tree tops as he floated down, scraping branches against branches, and making more noise than a single human body had any business making. It startled Zach into jumping on Warren, his body glowing like a small sun in the dark woods. 

“Hey guys.” A pause. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No.” Warren dropped Zach like a sack of potatoes. 

The light wielder fell to the forest floor with an unpleasant sounding ‘oof’. The light of his glow flickering like a lamp that’s been jostled. 

“We’re ready to go.” Warren stepped over their friend. 

Scrambling back to his feet, Zach almost koala hugged Will. As Warren said, they were ready to go. Zach was ready to get back to the familiar ground of Barron Battle’s murder cabin. More importantly, the car that could take them down the mountain and back to civilization. He had enough of this ‘five idiots walk into the woods and find a monster’ horror movie trope they seemed to have stumbled into. 

Ethan and Magenta were already breaking down the tents when they landed in the clearing. 

“I see you found them alive.” Magenta commented as she tried to roll the girl tent up small enough to fit back in the bag it came in. 

“Nah, monsters don’t wanna eat Warren.” Will laughed. “He’s too bitter.”

The pyrokinetic gave a groan of disgust. That wasn’t even a good pun. “Excuse you! I’m spicy.”

Seeing that the others had already started breaking camp and were ready to head back to town, Warren stomped to the line of tree stumps the others cut down the previous day. 

“Now what are you doing?” Will asked. 

“Step two of clearing the driveway.” He supplied. “So we can pull the car right up to the foundation and reload all the stuff.” 

Lighting both hands on fire, Warren waked up to the closest tree stump. He held it on the sides, allowing his fire to spread to the trunk. Sap bubbled up from the cross-section and boiled off. Bark blackened and curled, but Warren made sure there was no fire when it fell from the trunk. Slowly, the trunk was reduced to charcoal, then ash. A slight tap was all that was needed for the stump-shaped pile to disintegrate into dust. Warren placed a hand to the ground, making sure the roots weren’t still smoldering under the ground. Smoldering roots under the ground could spread to the surrounding trees, or start a delayed fire. When he was confident there was no danger of his efforts burning down the forest, Warren moved on to the next stump. 

He repeated this process several times with every tree Magenta, Zach, and Ethan cut down the previous day. 

It worked fairly well. Warren drove the car up the newly cleared driveway, right up to the concrete foundation.

Magenta tossed the girl tent and chainsaw in the trunk. “Well, this has been an utterly disappointing weekend.”

“Yeah.” Ethan agreed. “I’m just ready to go home.”

They finished packing up the car and all piled in. Everyone was ready for this weekend to end and get back to their regular lives and superhero duties in the city. 

Warren still had his part time job at the Paper Lantern, and was also in his second year of culinary school. He spent his nights as the dark and brooding hero of flame, Phoenix. 

Will was studying for his realtor’s exam to earn a realtor’s license and work alongside his parents selling properties. In addition to already working along side his parents as the hero the Lieutenant, son of the Commander and Jetstream. 

Ethan was attending Maxville University, working to get a degree in fluid dynamics. His study time was already cut into by his time spent as the hero, Liquidator. 

Zach didn’t know what he wanted to do day-job wise, he was still trying to figure things out. He spent most of his time as the hero of light, Highlighter. 

Nobody really knew what Magenta was doing, she was pretty secretive about the kind of day-job she was preparing for. But she was always available to back them up as the hero Scurry. 

Turning over the engine, Warren drove back down the bumpy and uneven dirt road. The drive just as uncomfortable as if had been on their way up. Maybe even more so because now they were tired from sleeping on a hard foundation, and irritated from stumbling through the woods. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the car pulled out onto the main highway that would take them back down the mountain. 

They drove for less than half an hour before Warren turned off the highway again and into Bedlam’s town center. 

“I thought we were going home.” It was Will who asked this, but everyone groaned a similar sentiment. 

“I need to refill the tank or else we won’t be going anywhere.” Warren informed them. 

They drove down what must have been Bedlam’s main street. It really was a small town. Their school was all grades, K through 12, and was a small two story building that had an antique brass bell in a steeple on the roof. The City Hall, Courthouse, and Police station all appeared to be in one building as well. It was right across the street from another triple threat, the local diner, general store, and gas station. It was this one that Warren pulled up to. 

The gas pumps were to one side of the building, leaving the majority of the parking lot available for customers of the general store or diner –not that there were many. The entire town of Bedlam was probably less than a thousand people. 

Warren climbed out of the driver’s seat to pump the gas. “Besides, we haven’t eaten anything yet today. Why don’t you guys get some breakfast while I fill up.”

“Want me to get you something?” Will offered his friend. 

“No, I’ll grab something when I go in to pay.” Warren waved him off. 

The others filed out of the car and into the diner-general store. But not without an unsolicited comment about the wisdom of having the fire user pump the highly flammable gasoline. Warren wrinkled his nose at the comment but other wise chose to ignore the remark. He could make far more cutting remarks about their powers. 

Standing by the pump, Warren watched the numbers tick up. An old analogue counter with metal number slides on a reel. Half of them were faded off or rusted over. Warren didn’t know if he was looking at a 3 or an 8 some times. He kept his eyes on the numbers as their went up, using context to determine exactly how much he was paying for gas. Even with the out dated price tally, it was still cheaper per gallon than gas in the city. 

Eyes fixed on the counter, Warren almost didn’t notice the Sherriff’s truck pull up to the pump behind his. He just noticed a large pick-up with antlers on the hood and a gun rack in the cab pull up. He didn’t notice it was actually an official town vehicle until the Sherriff climbed out in full uniform. A gun at his hip, and a folder under one arm. 

Warren looked up, getting a better look at the man. He knew even less about Bedlam’s local law enforcement than he knew about Bedlam itself. 

This was the town his father grew up in. But Battle talked so little about his childhood and past before he became a supervillain. Bedlam might as well have been a foreign country. 

Turning his head back to the pump, Warren surveyed the older man out the corner of his eye. In his early fifties, not much older than Warren’s own father. Warren didn’t recognize him, so probably not a member of the super-community. Just a mundane with no powers who decided to work for his town and his community keeping them safe however he can. Standard, non-powered, law enforcement officer. 

Another man came out of the gas-station-convenience-store-diner, waving a hello to the Sherriff. “Mornin’, Darryl.”

“Carl.” With the hand not holding the folder, the Sherriff reached out as if to shake the other man’s hand, then changed directions, angling up to give him a more affectionate slap on the shoulder. He nodded to the number of cars in the parking lot. “Busy today.”

Warren tried not to snort. Aside from the Sherriff himself, his car was the only one at the pump. There were two other cars in the lot. One of them had to belong to the guy who worked the store-gas-station-diner, Carl. That meant only one other customer besides Warren and his friends. By Maxville business standards, this was dead. Apparently, by small town standards, this was a rush. 

“You seen any Parasol Corp trucks pass by recently?” Asked the Sherriff. 

“Them loggers, yeah.” Nodded Carl. “They filled up on my diesel about… day before yesterday then headed up the road. Complained that the card machine wasn’t workin’ and had to pay cash. One of ‘em do somethin’? I still got them bills if you need ‘em. For evidence, or whatever.”

Carl moved as if he were about to dash back inside the store to retrieve the cash bills for the Sherriff. 

“No, no.” The Sherriff stopped him. “I’m just co-laketin’ data as they say.-“ Warren couldn’t tell if he meant ‘collecting data’, or ‘correlating data’. One of them made sense within the context, the other was very, very incorrect. “-Wanted to know when they went up the mountain. Who saw ‘em last. Ain’t not other stops between their site and town. Chances are, you saw ‘em last.”

“Saw ‘em last?” Carl echoed, startled. “They die or somethin’?”

Upon hearing that, Warren lifted his head, looking directly at the two men. There was just a corner on a crime scene photo poking out of the folder the Sherriff held. He couldn’t see much. But he did see the torn scrap of a plaid shirt and a bloody rib. Obviously, he couldn’t know for sure without actually seeing the whole photo, but his gut told him that it was related to the dead deer they found up around his dad’s old murder cabin. 

“You know I can’t talk ‘bout an open investigation.” The Sherriff reminded him. 

“Right, right.” Nodded the other man. “Lots’a things been getting killed up in them mountains since the quake. Just last week I took my boys hunting up near Echo Caves and we found a whole bear dead. Big sucker too! Not some scrawny cub that couldn’t make it on ‘is own. The kind I wouldn’t wanna run across alive. Chest all cut open and ribs spread like someone started to butcher it. But the guts weren’t touched or nothin’ and the skin was all still there. Just the heart was gone.”

That definitely, definitely sounded like the deer that they found up near the murder cabin. Whatever was killing things around their future base seemed to be killing things all over the mountain range. The two men had Warren’s undivided attention now. 

“I thought it might be poachers.” Explained Carl. “Ya know they say bear bladders fix pecker trouble. They fetch a price on the black market. But I didn’t wanna get mixed up in that. So I took my boys and we came home.” A pause. “Was it them poachers? Did they kill Parasol’s loggers?”

The Sherriff shook his head. “Still can’t talk about it, Carl. But thanks for the info. I’ll look into it.”

The old pump dinged and Warren jumped. He had been listening to the two men’s conversation so intently, he’d forgotten about his own car and gas. The other men jumped too, looking up at him. Warren returned the nozzle to the side of the machine, trying to look as nonchalant and unassuming as possible. 

“Ain’t seen you ‘round before.” Said the Sherriff. 

“Just came up for the weekend.” Warren told him. It wasn’t a lie. They had just come up for the weekend. Now they were on their way back down. “Camping with a few friends.”

The Sherriff continued to glare at him. Looking the younger man up and down. Noting his leather boots, ripped jeans, black t-shirt with some kind of fire-bird logo on it, under an old and scuffed leather jacket. Warren did not look like someone who had just come from camping for the weekend. He looked like the kind of punk the Sherriff might bust on the weekends for driving under the influence, playing mailbox baseball, or taking pot shots at beer cans by the train tracks. In short, Warren looked like trouble. He did not look like an innocent tourist here to contribute to the town economy. 

It was pretty clear that the Sherriff didn’t like him instantly. 

Warren offered what he hoped looked like a friendly –and innocent- smile. Smiles were not something he was very good at. It instead ended up looking more like a shit-eating grin. Will was better at smiles. Will was better at a lot of the little details that involved ‘getting along with people’. Warren didn’t know how to get along with people unless they already wanted to get along with him first. 

“This is a small town, son.” Began the Sherriff –Warren hated it when people (especially people who didn’t know him) called him ‘son’. “We tend to take note of strangers here.”

“We were just leaving.” Warren assured him. 

Great. The place they were planning to build their hero base was right next to a town that was warry of strangers and low-key hostile. Subtly hostile. The sort of passive aggressive hostile that made a person uncomfortable without being exactly able to place their finger on why they were uncomfortable. The Sherriff had essentially just accused Warren of being a trouble maker and threatened that he would be watched when in town. Great. Just great. 

What would Sherriff Darryl Last-Name-Unknown think when the actual costumed heroes moved in?

But whatever they might think, that was not the priority at the moment. At the moment, their priority was something in the woods killing things. Deer, and bears, and –if Warren was interpreting the Sherriff’s file and questions right- now human civilians. People. That was something they needed to put a stop to.


	3. A Quiet Place

It took almost the rest of the day to drop off the rest of their group and return the rented chainsaw, tents, and car. It wasn’t particularly physical work. In fact, compared to the activity he got as the superhero, Phoenix, it was practically a lazy day. 

Even so, by the end of it all, Warren felt exhausted. If he wanted to fill out forms all day he would have become a CPA. 

“Why do you look like I need to buy you a drink?” Will asked. He was the only one Warren hadn’t dropped off at their own home since he could fly anywhere he wanted and didn’t need to be chauffeured around. In fact, the plan was for Will to be Warren’s ride home.

“I’m still just twenty. You’re only nineteen. We’re too young to drink, Stronghold. Legally.” Warren stretched. They were standing in the parking lot of the car rental office, having just returned the car. “I just hate paperwork, ya know. Insurance forms, and ID checks, and making sure I got all my safety deposits back. It’s exhausting.”

Will snorted. He was studying to be a realtor like his parents. If Warren thought the paperwork involved in renting a car for a weekend was bad, then filling out a mortgage and buying a house would kill him. 

Either that, or there was something else on the pyrokinetic’s mind that he wasn’t sharing. Warren was good at that. Not sharing his thoughts or feelings. Keeping things hidden. Locked away behind emotional walls and rings of metaphorical fire to keep people out. Will and Layla were about the only people he actually opened up to, and even for them, it took a lot of gentle coaxing, and a lot of patience, and a lot of work. 

“Then let’s grab a bite to eat.” Will suggested. “I’ll call Layla. It’ll be just the three of us. We’ll make a night of it.”

“I have class in the morning.” Warren reminded him. “And then work in the evening.”

Will only rolled his eyes. Right. Like he never stayed out late as Phoenix on a night when he had school the next morning. They were young superheroes in their early twenties. They didn’t even know what sleep was. They ran on the vitality of their youth, copious amounts of energy drinks, and a level of masochism that was uniquely millennial. 

Ignoring his friend’s protests, Will pulled out his cell phone. His civilian cell, not his red phone. “I’m calling Layla. With her flying out at the end of the month, this might be the last time Phoenix, the Lieutenant, and Persephone can hang out together for a while.” 

Warren might have continued to protest if it was just him and Will. But he could rarely –if ever- say no to seeing Layla. Especially now that her plans for leaving Maxville and putting her powers to better use and greater benefit to the world were solidified, written in stone, and set in motion. As Will said, she would be flying out at the end of the month. While Warren knew it wasn’t like he’d never see her again, Layla would come back and visit (both her parents who still lived in Maxville as well as her friends), Warren didn’t know how long that would be. 

Layla held a special place in his heart. She was the first of their group to decide not to be afraid of him. The first to work her way under the barriers he threw up to keep people out. Like stubborn roots growing through a wall. If it wasn’t for Layla, Warren wouldn’t even have friends. If he wanted to be completely honest with himself, Warren cared for Layla more than he cared for anyone else in their group –Will included. Though, he would never admit it out loud. 

“Great!” Will was saying into his phone. “We’ll meet you there. Whoever gets there first see if you can snag our booth!” He ended the call and looked back at Warren. “Layla’s gonna meet us at the Paper Lantern.”

That said, without waiting for permission, or even an acknowledgment from the other man, Will scooped Warren up into his arms and leapt into the air. 

Unsurprisingly since they were flying, Will and Warren arrived at the Paper Lantern first. They did have to wait a few moments for their booth to be bussed. Will joked that Warren should just bus it himself and save time, but for liability purposes the Paper Lantern couldn’t allow people to work off the clock and Warren was not scheduled to come in that day. So, they waited. 

It was the same booth Warren found Layla sitting at the day Will stood her up. Alone with a wilting orchid, looking abandoned and forlorn. It was the same booth he found Will sitting at the day he tried to patch things up with Layla and invited her out to dinner but she stood him up in turn. It was where Warren handed out wisdom and advice beyond his years, and formed connections and bonds with people he initially assumed to be rivals or enemies. It was Their Booth. 

When it was clear and they were shown to their booth, Will slid in with a smile. Warren flopped down opposite him. 

There was a beat of silence. 

Both men glanced to the door, hoping Layla would walk through at that exact moment. 

It looked like they would have to wait for her a bit longer. 

“So…” Will began, feeling a need to break the silence. “Are you moody today because Layla’s leaving, because we found a bunch of dead stuff around your dad’s murder cabin, or is this just your normal daily moodiness?” A pause. “Just gonna say, this doesn’t feel like your normal daily moodiness.”

Without even having to take an order, the server brought out their usuals. Unseasoned chicken and broccoli for Will. Szechwan beef for Warren. And… the server stood there looking confused, holding Layla’s eggplant and tofu in a black bean sauce, but not seeing Layla. 

“She’s coming.” Warren informed him, speaking in Cantonese. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t get cold.”

The server put the plate down next to Warren’s own beef and walked away. Apparently, they just assumed Layla would be sitting next to Warren instead of next to Will. 

Choosing not to read too much into it, Warren took a bite out of his beef. 

He’d been eating more and more red meat lately. For the past year in fact. Even since they stopped Faultline. Ever since he got stabbed in the chest and killed, and they discovered that –like Will- Warren was also a super with two powers. One power from each parent. Pyrokinisis from his mother, and the ability to revive after death from his father. But ever since then, the pyrokinetic’s diet had changed. His body craved flesh now. So, he was eating more meat. More dark meats and red meats. The parts with dense muscle. Less marbling. Less fatty tissue. 

“I’m not ‘moody’.” Warren insisted. “I’m just… concerned.”

“You don’t need to be.”

Both men looked up to see Layla standing next to the table. She was wearing a bohemian style sweatshirt over a tunic and long skirt ensemble that was all woven from natural fibers and colored using natural dyes. Her hair was twisted into a pair of matching buns that hallowed her head in a way that made it look like she was framed by red flower petals. Warren always loved how she fixed her hair, and he couldn’t help the smile that pulled at his lips. Just seeing her made him happy. …He didn’t know what he was going to do when she was gone. 

“My flights already confirmed and I just got my last battery of vaccinations today.” Layla informed them. She scooched into the booth next to Warren, passing her satchel-style purse to Will who placed it on the seat next to him. Taking a bite of her tofu, she gave a bitter-sweet smile. She was going to miss this place. “So, there’s nothing to be concerned about.”

Warren was going to assure her that he knew how capable and independent she was. Self-reliant and in control. That she was powerful and skilled, and he knew she could take care of herself. He had no reason to be concerned for her. Instead, what came out was, “How long will you be gone?”

Layla shrugged, taking a more substantial bite of tofu and eggplant. “Until I’m satisfied with the work I’ve done, I guess.” She told them. “I didn’t buy a return ticket because I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go somewhere else when I decide I’m done. Just keep moving around the globe. Go where I’m needed until I’m not needed anymore.”

That could keep Layla away for the rest of her life. There could be a need for her powers almost all over the globe. Re-growing the rainforests in South America, combatting famine in Asia, produce more algae in the Atlantic, combat hunger in Africa, topsoil displacement in Europe… Name a continent and Layla could name a way her powers could be used to improve the environment or the human experience, most often both. Layla might actually be leaving forever. 

Unconsciously, Warren’s hand wrapped itself around hers under the table. 

She was the first in their group to befriend him. Get behind his barriers. Pull him out of his shell. Make him feel safe and comfortable enough to form other connections and friendships. He had the group of friends he had because of Layla. He didn’t want her to go –not if it meant she was going away forever.

Layla looked down, startled when his hand suddenly closed around hers. His hands were so warm! All of Warren was always so warm. Fire users ran hot, and Warren Peace was no exception to this rule. 

Warren looked down too. He wasn’t even aware he’d done it until she drew attention to it. He let go almost immediately and looked away. Face burning with emotions he did not want to feel, and certainly did not want to talk about. 

Layla offered a gentle smile. “But I’ll come back and visit!” She promised. “Mom and Dad still live here. And, of course, there’s you guys! And I wanna see this shared base once it’s built! Sounds exciting!”

“About that.” Will blurted out. “It turns out there might be something in the woods around Mr. Battle’s murder cabin.”

“’Murder cabin’!?” Layla echoed, startled and confused. “Why’s it a murder cabin? Who got killed? Is it not safe?”

“It’s fine.” Warren growled. “The others just started calling it that because I made the mistake of telling them that there’s one body buried on the property. Now they’ve decided it’s a ‘murder cabin’. It’s not even a cabin any more. It’s not even a ruin anymore. We’re just coming back from burning it down. Now it’s nothing.”

The last remnants of Barron Battle’s childhood reduced to ash. Nothing more than dust on the wind. 

“But there is something in the woods.” Will said. 

“What is it?” Asked Layla.

“We don’t know.” Will had to admit. “We never saw it. Zach’s the only one who saw it and his description was… not helpful. But we found evidence of it. Two dead deer.”

“Aw… poor things.” 

“It’s not just deer.” Warren cut in. He leaned over the table conspiratorially. Lowering his voice so that only Will and Layla could hear. They similarly leaned over the table, following his cues. “While we were stopped in town I overheard the Sherriff talking to someone else. Apparently, this thing’s killed bears too. And –I can’t be sure about this, I didn’t actually see the photos- but maybe it’s getting people too.”

“What?” Both Layla and Will were horror struck. 

Warren nodded. “The Sherriff had a folder with him. I saw a bit of a photo, but not the whole thing. It looked a bit like how we found the deer carcasses. And he was asking about a team of loggers that went up into the mountains and never came back.”

Will’s eyes went wide with recognition. “Earlier when I was flying around, I saw what looked like a crime scene in the middle nowhere in the woods!”

“Keep your voice down!” Warren hissed. People from other tables turned to glance at them. “You didn’t feel the need to mention this earlier?”

It was all Will could do to shrug. “I didn’t know it was important. I don’t know anything about woods or logging. For all I knew, that was a normal thing.”

It was all Warren could do to roll his eyes at his friend’s stupidity. 

“Sounds to me like you need to get a look at that case file the Sherriff had.” Layla suggested. “Or, Phoenix and the Lieutenant need to.”

Both Will and Warren looked up. Their eyes meeting over the table. 

“We’re gonna fly back up to Bedlam tonight, aren’t we.” Warren groaned. Resigned to the knowledge that he was going to go another night with little-to-no sleep. 

Will only nodded, not knowing why that idea hadn’t occurred to him. They really were lost without Layla. What were they gonna do when she was gone?

“Fine.” Warren sighed, resigned to his fate. “Just remember I have class in the morning and none of us got much sleep this weekend.”

…

Exiting through the police station door of the City Hall-Court House building, Sherriff Darryl Law yawned loudly. He held his empty coffee cup in one hand, and some work he was taking home with him in the other. It was getting dark and he wanted to get home before the fog rolled down from the higher elevations and plaid tricks on the eyes. 

He was almost at his truck, juggling his empty coffee cup and the files, to get his keys out when a dark shadow dropped out of the night. It landed on the roof of his truck, making it bounce on its wheels and the Sherriff exclaimed an expletive that would have been considered vulgar in this godfearing town of his. 

Blinking the shock out of his eyes, the Sherriff looked up to see what looked like a costumed supervillain crouched on the roof of his truck. 

Clad in almost all black. A black body suit with black armor plates, black boots, black gloves, even his mask was black. The only color on him was the emblem on his chest. A red bird, as if made of fire, with wings spread. The tips of the wings curving up his shoulders to turn into red stripes that ran down his arms. 

The Sherriff had never seen a supervillain up close before. He didn’t know what he was expecting. He was expecting to never see a supervillain at all, never mind up close. What would supers –villain or otherwise- want with his tiny little town up in the middle of no where. They weren’t near any military bases. They didn’t boarder the oceans, or have significant trade ports. They didn’t sit on top of rare and precious natural resources that could be mined. Hell! They didn’t even have any famous residents. Bedlam’s only claim to fame was that it overlooked Maxville. 

“I don’ want no trouble.” The Sherriff calmly –very calmly, the calm that comes from years of living near the woods and being conditioned on how to behave when you run across a wild predator- placed his files on the ground, using his empty coffee mug to weight them down and make sure the wind didn’t blow them away. “I donno what no supervillain wants up here. But if you’re the one that’s been doin’ the killin’ I’m gonna have to ask you to surrender.”

Hands free now, he reached for the handcuffs on his belt. Then quickly rethought this decision and unclipped his gun holster instead. 

There was a rush of air and the Sherriff felt a hand cover his. It snapped the strap over his gun back into place and gently –very gently, the gentleness of someone holding back the vast majority of their strength- pulled his hand away from the weapon. Then let go.

“He’s not a villain. He’s just… edgy.” The voice sounded like it was trying for apologetic, but came out more exasperated. 

Taking his eyes off the villain still crouching on top of the truck, the Sherriff turned to the second super. This one he definitely, definitely recognized. He’d been on TV enough within the past year. No mask. An open and honest face. Feathery hair of a light brown or sandy blond color. Dressed in white, blue, and red. No cape. This was the son of the Commander and Jetstream. This was… “The Lieutenant!”

The Lieutenant gave an almost goofy smile and scratched the back of his head. Almost as if he were embarrassed. As if he weren’t used to being recognized. As if being famous made him uncomfortable or something. 

“This is Phoenix.” The Lieutenant introduced his darkly dressed companion as a way of deflecting attention off himself. 

“Hi.” The brooding not-villain jumped down off the truck to land in front of the Sherriff. But he ignored the other man and instead bent down to pick up the files he had so carefully set down on the ground. 

“Hey! You can’t just-!” The Sherriff began to object. 

“Phoenix, you need to ask permission first.” The Lieutenant reminded his companion. “The police up here might not share the same relationship with supers that the police in Maxville have.” Then to the Sherriff. “Sorry, Officer…” a jacket covered the Sherriff’s uniform, nametag included “…uh, sir. But we’re looking into some mysterious killings up in the woods and we were wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing information with us.”

“Why don’t you ask to borrow a cup of flour while you’re at it.” Phoenix snarked. He took a glossy crime scene photo out of the folder and held it up for the Lieutenant to see. It was of the body of a man lying on his back. The grass around him stained a reddish brown from his blood. Orange safety vest, jacket, and plaid shirt ripped open. Chest torn out. Sternum cracked, and ribs bent back. Lungs, and stomach, and guts virtually untouched. The only thing missing was the heart. “I was right. It is just like the others. Whatever it is, it’s killing people now too.”

“You know what did this?” The Sherriff gaped at them. 

“Not really, no.” The Lieutenant was so open and honest. Trusting. Almost naïve, really. Almost like a child. A child with superpowers. 

Phoenix replaced the photo in the folder and handed the stack back to the Sherriff. “Can we get a copy of that file?”

“Beggin’ your pardon,” began the Sherriff, not budging an inch, “but I don’ know you. Y’all ain’t from ‘round here. You’re from Maxville-“ he said to the Lieutenant “-and I ain’t never heard of you.” he said to Phoenix. “Why should I just hand over my investigation to supers I don’ know?”

“We have a better chance of finding and stopping whatever’s killing things in the woods than you do.” Phoenix informed him. 

It did not have the desired effect. The Sherriff was insulted, not reassured. It was like the dark-clad superhero was saying the Sherriff couldn’t do his damn job right. Where did he get off-!? “Listen here, you long-hair, tights-wearin’, son of a-“

“It’s the neighborly thing to do!” Cut in the Lieutenant, sensing that they were losing the Sherriff’s cooperation –not that they had much of it to begin with. “We’re not just two heroes from Maxville. We’re gonna be building a base up here. You’re gonna have a lot of heroes close by. In Maxville the police work with the heroes and the heroes work with the police. We all want the same things, but we go about it in different ways. So we work together as best we can. It would be nice if we could have that same relationship with the law enforcement here. All we wanna do is help.”

“I don’ care how they do things in your big city!” Snapped the Sheriff. “This ain’t Maxville. This here’s Bedlam, and we got our own way of doin’ things. We take care of our own!”

Phoenix scoffed. “Great. The average and mundane small town Sheriff thinks he has the better chance of finding and stopping a heart-stealing monster than two trained superheroes.”

Phoenix was not a people person. He did not have a gift for convincing anyone of anything. His strong suits were insults and alienation. He was very good at pissing villains off to the point of making mistakes. He was not very good at getting uncooperative town officials to cooperate. The Lieutenant pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“What my colleague is trying to say,” he began, silently begging the powers that be to make his life easier and just magically turn Phoenix into a ‘people person’, “is that, we have training for things like this, our powers give us added benefits that you and your deputies may not have, and our help comes free, and with no strings attached. Unlike the FBI or another outside investigative force, we won’t fight over jurisdiction and we don’t demand payment. This is still your town, so it’s still your case. We just help stop the bad thing, protect the peace, and make sure justice is served.”

The Sherriff paused, looking between the two heroes. 

The Lieutenant with his open and honest face; and Phoenix dressed in all black with a domino mask covering half his face so that it was near impossible to read his expression. He was still suspicious of that one, but the Lieutenant had a quality about him that just seemed so honest. He was the kind of person that made other people want to trust him. No mask, no pretenses, like he didn’t have anything to hide. He didn’t have a secret identity, he was the Lieutenant. That was all he was. All hero. No other life. He just wanted to help. 

He didn’t like Phoenix instantly. But he felt he could work with the Lieutenant. 

It wasn’t like he had much to lose. 

With a sigh, the Sherriff bent down to pick up his discarded coffee cup. “Copy machine’s inside.”

He led the two costumed supers back into the building. 

It wasn’t just the police station. It was the police station, Court House, and City Hall all in one building. The Sherriff brought them in through the police station entrance, but there was an open gap in the wall for people to pass between the City Hall main lobby and the station. A sad little outdate metal detector was erected around the opening. It looked like a relic from the seventies. Like this place hadn’t gotten new equipment since the Carter era. 

But that wasn’t what caught Phoenix’s eyes. 

Stepping through the opening, and ignoring the metal detector as it went off from the metal in his utility belt and body armor, Phoenix walked right up to a wall of photos. They looked like the kinds of thing people take to commemorate the winner’s of a contest. And, in fact, front and center in each photo was a letter board that proclaimed it to be the ‘Annual Bedlam Wildhunt’ and then the year of each photo. Each photo probably being of that year’s winner, or whoever bagged the most impressive kill. The pictures were all of one (sometimes two if it was a team effort) hunter posing with a dead animal and their gun. 

But Phoenix seemed to be ignoring the vast majority of the photos, the whited-out eyes of his mask focusing only on one. The winner from 1978. 

Younger than the other winners before him or that came after. Seventeen or eighteen. Still high school age. Probably in his senior year. Dressed in green and brown leather. A leather shirt-vest that was a very similar cut to the black one of the supervillain costume he would wear later in his adult life. With curly dark hair, longish for a boy. Wearing wire framed glasses. A dark scowl on his face. He stood behind a table that had the carcass of a white stag draped over it. Its antlers large, with many multiple prongs. One single crossbow bolt through the animal’s skull. The boy in green and brown leathers had the corresponding crossbow slung over one shoulder. 

The Lieutenant came up at Phoenix’s side. “What are you looking at- Ohmygawd! He looks just like his picture in my dad’s old yearbook!”

Now the Sherriff joined them at the wall of photos. “The Wildhunt is something we do every year.” He explained. “Used to offer a cash prize to the winner, but that was back when the economy was better. Now it’s just braggin’ rights and a free dinner at the diner.” He paused to really look at the specific picture the heroes were gaping at. “I remember this year. I was still in high school at the time. Weird kid. He lived up in the woods outside of town. Didn’t go to school with the rest of us, got on a different bus. But his Pa was friends with my Pa. Battle, that was the family name. Then one day the family truck was seen on the road heading out of town, and he was never seen or heard from again.” A pause. “Why? Do you think he has something to do with this?”

“No.” Phoenix shook his head. “No. Its unrelated. We just… know him.”

The Sherriff paused, staring at the two costumed heroes. How would two superheroes from the big city become acquainted with someone from a small town in the middle of nowhere like Bedlam? “Wait… was he a… super? All that time, we had our own super livin’ in town and never knew! We could’a had our own local superhero!”

“No.” Both Phoenix and the Lieutenant choired in unison. 

Oh. So it was like that. He was a super, but not a hero. A villain then? Bedlam might have had its own resident supervillain. Never mind. It was good he left town thirty years ago without a word to anyone. Bedlam didn’t need no trouble. 

Clearing his throat, the Sherriff tried to steer the heroes back to the police station side of the building. “So, uh, the case file.”

Phoenix and the Lieutenant followed him back through the metal detector, once again ignoring its sad little beeps as each one of them went through. Going off for the Sherriff’s gun and badge, Phoenix’s body armor, and the Lieutenant’s utility belt. They followed the Sherriff through the small station. Past a drunk asleep in the holding cell, and a deputy asleep at her desk, to the Sherriff’s office near the back of the building. 

He turned on an old and practically ancient toner copier and began running off photocopies of the written reports. The transcript of the Parasol Corporation’s call informing the Sherriff that their logging team hadn’t checked in and to please look into it. The first responders’ reports when they found the bodies dead by their truck. The crime scene tech’s (singular, the town only had one CSI) initial report based on her examination of the scene. 

“We’re still waiting on the final coroner’s report.” The Sherriff told them. “Old Bob’s the Medical Examiner, pediatrician, and general practitioner here, so he’s got his hands full. The dead don’t take much priority over kids and the living.” 

“Wow, this really is a small town.” Commented the Lieutenant. 

Phoenix tapped the copies the Sherriff made for them, evening out all the papers and noting that the toner flaked off if he held them too roughly. Not only was this a small town, but they needed new equipment. Basic equipment like a decent photocopier that used ink that didn’t rub off or fade. 

“I assume that’s just a black and white copier.” He said. “Any chance I can get color copies of the photos?”

“There’s a fancy new laser printer in the Court House.” The Sherriff informed them tartly. “Betty-Ann’s the only one who knows how to work the damn thing though and she’s gone home for the night.”

Of course. 

Phoenix massaged the sides of his head, as if he were frustrated and trying to stave off a stress headache. “You’ve gotta have email, right?”

For half a second the Sherriff looked insulted. “We may be a small town, boyo, but we do live in this century. We’ve all got email and My Space!”

“My Space, oh my gawd.” The Lieutenant had to put a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing and risk insulting the Sherriff that was trying to work with them. 

Choosing to ignore his companion’s comment, Phoenix tried not to skip a beat. “Can you email me the rest of the file that can’t be copied on this copier?” He reached into his belt and pulled out what looked like an ordinary and mundane business card. Thick cardstock in a matte black color with glossy red lettering identifying him as ‘Phoenix, from the ashes a fire shall be woken’, a fully licensed and register superhero, the email address was phoenix@skyhigh.ed.gov and then a phone number with a Maxville area code. 

“I try to check that email at least once a day, and the number is for my red phone if you need to speak to me directly.” The hero explained. 

The Sherriff stared at the card for a second longer. The moment feeling almost surreal. Aside from the color, it wasn’t really all that different from the cards he handed out to witnesses as a member of law enforcement. He blinked back at the hero, then cleared his throat. “I’ll get you the rest of the file right away.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Phoenix nodded. “Oh, and one more thing, where is Echo Caves?”

“What?” Blinked the Sherriff. 

“Echo Caves.” Repeated the hero. “I heard it mentioned earlier today.”

“Oh well that’s…” The Sherriff moved to the office door, beckoning the two heroes to follow him. He led them back past the holding cell to the main bullpen of the station where one giant map of the whole mountain range took up almost an entire wall. The Sherriff pointed. “Here. This is Echo Caves. It’s near where the river drains into Crystal Lake so it’s good hunting. Lots of deer and wild turkey, also bears. Natural game trail. Why?”

The Lieutenant just stared at where he was pointing on the map. “That’s close to-“

But Phoenix cut him off, silencing the other hero. “How long have these killings been going on for?”

“Well, we only just found the first human victims this mornin’.” Admitted the Sherriff. 

“And the animals?” Phoenix pressed. “How long have you been finding animals dead with their hearts missing but the meat left untouched?”

This time the Sherriff paused, thinking. Counting days and months. “Just about a year, I guess. Since that really bad quake.”

The Lieutenant glanced between the Sherriff and his companion. “You think Faultline might have accidentally knocked something free, or awoken something with all her shaking?” He asked. “Some long buried thing that’s now stalking the woods looking for victims.”

Phoenix tapped his chin in thought. “Have there ever been any supervillains to make their lairs in these mountains?” He asked. “Any mad scientists that might have kept secret labs up here. Or dumped failed experiments?” When the Sherriff shook his head that he didn’t know, the superhero continued. “What about local legends? Any crypteds? Folk monsters? Ghost stories? Native legends?”

The Sherriff snorted. “This is a small town, son-“ Phoenix wrinkled his nose, apparently, he did not appreciate being called ‘son’ by a man who was not his father “-‘course we got tall tales!”

“Can you email those to me to?” 

“I don’ see how ghost stories are gonna help here.” Admitted the Sherriff. 

“At the very least, they’ll give me an idea of the cultural climate of the area.” Phoenix informed him. 

The Sherriff only scoffed. He was skeptical that ‘cultural climate’ was even a thing, never mind whether or not it might help with an investigation. He lived and worked in the same town he was born in and grew up in. A small little hamlet, relatively isolated in the mountains. The culture had been stagnant for the past fifty years. The recent killings not withstanding, Bedlam was a sleepy little town where nothing ever happened. 

A quiet place.


	4. The Uninvited

“Hey. Hey, Dude! Your béchamel is boiling over!”

“Huh! Wha-!?” Warren blinked. He hadn’t realized he was asleep on his feet until the student next to him shoved him with her elbow. He looked down at his work station and realized it was true. His classwork was, indeed, boiling over. Thick white cream sauce browning, and bubbling over the lip of the pan, to drip and sizzle on the stove. “Shit!”

Instinctively he extinguished the stove flame with his powers before turning off the actual gas. That was dumb. His mother trained him better than that. Never let gas free, especially not when there are other open flames around. Always make sure the gas or other flammables are turned off first. Before taking away the fire. Warren was tired. 

He often got tired around noon. When the sun was highest in the sky. The midway point between night and night. He didn’t used to be like this. This was something new. Another weird quirk that came along with his second power. The price for being ‘functionally-immortal’ and ‘death impaired’ was an above average appetite for red meat cooked rare, and weakness and exhaustion during the brightest point of the day. 

This particular exhaustion, however, Warren was pretty sure was on account of not getting much sleep over the weekend, then staying up even later last night investigating the killings up in Bedlam. 

Will got to sleep in. He was one step away from getting his realtor’s license and could set his own schedule. Warren, on the other hand, was attending culinary school in addition to continuing to work his part-time job at the Paper Lantern. Unlike Will, he did not have the luxury of setting his own schedule or sleeping in late, taking naps in the middle of the day, or relaxing when he felt like it. Warren had civilian commitments that were just as important as his hero work and made equal demands on his time. 

Warren was always sleep deprived. 

The teacher drifted over, giving Warren’s burdened pan an almost mournful look. “Less heat next time, Mr. Peace.” She said. “And remember to stir it more regularly.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He nodded, feeling like a fool for falling asleep in front of a lit stove. The fact that he ruined his project and embarrassed himself in front of the teacher aside. The fastest way to blow his secret identity as a super with fire powers was to fall face-first into an open flame and not get burned. Fire couldn’t harm him. 

But blowing his secret identity, failing his classes, and flunking out of school could harm him. 

Somehow, he managed to get through the rest of class without falling asleep again. But he was yawning the whole time. More than one person turned to shoot him an irritated glare. Apparently, he was distracting. 

He almost fell asleep at the bus stop too. 

He would have fallen asleep –and missed his bus- if Zach hadn’t called him. 

Warren fumbled with his phone –his civilian cell, not his Phoenix red phone- hitting the green answer button just as his bus pulled up. He then had to fumble for his bus pass while the person on the other end listened to the odd shuffling sounds over the line. Finally, Warren took his seat and put the phone to his ear. 

“Hello~? Warren? Are you there?” Zach’s voice prodded from the other end.

“What do you want?” Warren was tired, that made him irritable. Not that he was ever the most friendly and sociable person to begin with, but with the way he was feeling, his hostility was up, and his approachability was down. 

Zach hesitated on the other end of the line. Warren Peace was their friend now, not their enemy. He hadn’t tried to murder any of them in years –really, not at all since that first time- and meeting his dad really did a lot for making him less intimidating too. The infamous Barron Battle wasn’t actually all that scary, just another goofy old dad. That made Warren less scary by proxy. The big bad supervillain wasn’t really all that big and bad, so how bad could the son of the supervillain be? But, the pyrokinetic did have his own personality and his own temper, and his temper was like fire. Hot and volatile. Like fire, he sometimes had to be handled with caution. 

“Uh… is this a bad time?” Zach asked. 

He was on the bus going from school to work, but he wasn’t actually at either. He was between commitments. This was literally the best possible time to bother him. “No. It’s fine.” He told the other man. “What did you need?”

Because his friends rarely called him when they wanted something. Will and Layla were the sweet approachable ones. They were the ones you called when all it was, was something you wanted. Warren was moody, intimidating, and serious. He believed in practicality and getting things done. He was a results man. Warren Peace was the friend you called when you needed something. 

“It’s just…” Zach’s voice trailed off as he floundered for words to express himself. Talking to Warren without Will or Layla around to buffer could sometimes be difficult. “I was thinking about the monster in the woods.” He tried to explain. “It’s around your Dad’s old house, and it looked like a person, but, like, starved. And your Dad was supposed to have buried his dad in the woods around there somewhere.” Zach paused to take a breath. If Warren had been more awake, he might have predicted where this was going. But he wasn’t. Zach’s suggestion seeming to come out of left field when he asked, “What if it is your grandfather?”

The question sent a shock through Warren. Adrenaline suddenly pumping, he sat up straight in his bus seat, fully awake and attentive to the voice on the other end of the phone. 

He didn’t know why that hadn’t occurred to him. He didn’t know why that wasn’t the first thing he thought of. The only thing missing from the animals, and the loggers were their hearts. The heart which was pure muscle, no marbling, or fatty tissue. The heart which pumped blood through the whole body. The heart which was the engine of life. Eating a heart was like eating life itself. Absorbing and assimilating it into your body. 

When Faultline picked up Barron Battle’s discarded blade and stabbed Warren in the heart… when Warren died… when Warren came back from death… he was hungry –ravenous, almost- and all he craved was dense raw muscle. Hearts. All he craved was a heart. He didn’t even realize that was what he needed until his father had cut out a pigeon heart and fed it to him raw. Warren was so overcome by his craving that he didn’t even realize what he was eating until he’d already swallowed. It was like a base instinct that overrode the rest of his brain. 

“I…” He had no idea what kind of response he should give Zach. What kind of response was someone supposed to offer to a suggestion like that? “I’ll ask my Dad on my next visit.”

“Okay.” Zach didn’t exactly sigh, but you could hear relief in his voice. Warren took the suggestion that it was his own family killing cute little woodland creatures a lot better than he thought he would. The pyrokinetic had calmed down a lot since high school. He still had that hot fire-wielder temper, but it was less volatile. “It would really suck if there was a zombie supervillain stalking the woods.”

Warren suppressed a groan. Zach really misunderstood the Battle family power of not being able to stay dead. They weren’t ‘zombies’. They weren’t vampires, wights, revenants, wraiths, shades, or any version of the ‘undead’. They were just ‘death impaired’. But he was sick of trying to explain it when his Dad was still sort of trying to explain it to him too. Their first conversation after Warren’s resurrection was cut short. He got the basic information. The necessities. All the smaller details and nuances, Battle was still explaining to Warren once every two weeks for an hour during the limited visits they were allowed at the prison. 

Instead, Warren informed Zach of his second assumption that was wrong. “My Dad’s dad wasn’t a supervillain.” He growled into the phone. “He was a hero.”

And he hung up. 

Good thing too, because the next stop was the Paper Lantern and he needed to get to work. Warren couldn’t afford to spend all day on the phone, wasting time with his friends. 

…

It was almost eleven by the time Warren got off work. Well after dark. Warren wasn’t as tired as he was earlier in the day, and he snuck a little bit of beef from the walk-in refrigerator on his break. That helped too. He was as rested as he was going to get. He was ready to get to work on his second job as Phoenix. 

Will met him outside the Paper Lantern just as he was stepping out with the rest of the night crew that was locking up. 

“What are you doing here?” Warren asked. While Phoenix and the Lieutenant did work together frequently, they were not formal partners. They didn’t work together always. 

Phoenix and the Lieutenant subscribed to different genres of heroism. 

The Lieutenant was the shining in the sunlight kind. He flew around during the day, rescued kittens from trees, fought giant robots and monsters. Gave interviews to intrepid reporters. Shared lunch from street vendors with police and rescue workers. Always in full costume. Joked and laughed. Made himself seem friendly and approachable. The kind of hero they put on cereal boxes and made action figures of. 

Phoenix, on the other hand, worked mostly in the dark. In alleys and the empty streets no one wanted to travel at night. He took on arsonists, extortionists, and drug dealers. Combatted protection rackets. Saved families that were meant to be ‘examples’. Got in the way of organized crime. Made enemies of the mobs. He was not the kind that they put on cereal boxes and made into action figures. He got his hands dirty. Phoenix was the type of hero that when you saw him heading one way, you started running full bore in the opposite direction –if you had any sense. No smart, law abiding citizen, with a healthy measure of self-preservation wanted to be anywhere near the kinds of hero work Phoenix was involved in. 

Will smiled at him. His friendly and open, ‘everything’s gonna be okay’ smile. He was here to help. He was here to save the day. “I thought we were gonna go through the email you asked the Bedlam Sherriff to send you.” He supplied. “You did kinda ask him to send you a lot.”

“Just the case file and some local stuff.” Warren scoffed. He did not protest when Will scooped him up in his arms and they took to the sky. 

They flew over the city. It was harder to see at night. When the street lights only illuminated patches of street and sidewalk. When the vast majority of the cityscape was shrouded in the darkness. But if you knew where to look, you could still see the damage from the quake. 

Not just the buildings surrounded by scaffolding and construction cranes. But the cracks in the pavement. Places where tar and asphalt had been poured in to patch the holes. Where the color of the sidewalk did not match the color of the surrounding blocks. Where the lines painted on the streets were vivid and bright, newly painted, unlike the rest of the lines in the vast majority of the city. 

Signs that the city was picking itself back up and moving on from Faultline’s attack. 

Maxville was almost back to what it was. Better, even. Stronger and more smartly built than before the quake. 

Will flew them over the city, heading north to Maxville Adjacent. 

Max Adj was technically part of Maxville county. But not considered part of Maxville city. Before Faultline’s quake a year ago, it was neglected and ignored by the city council. The streets were cracked and the sidewalks were upturned. The piping was old and ill maintained and the surface drainage was poor. 

But just as Maxville and Bedlam got a grant to repair and rebuild after the supervillain attack, so did Max Adj and they used that grant to the best of its abilities. With city piping –sewage, and drinking water- being their top priority. Repairing the streets –repaving roads, fixing lights, and unblocking the drainage systems- was the second priority. There wasn’t much left from the grant after that, but what was left was budgeted and put into a fund for maintaining the streets and the piping. 

Will landed in front of a small one-story house, with a dry dirt front yard, and a short chain-link fence around it. 

“I was planning on patrolling South Side tonight.” Warren told the other man. They were clean on the opposite side of the city now. Will could fly him there in less time than it took to complain, but Warren actually would rather complain. 

“Someone’s killing people and things up in Bedlam and they don’t have a hero of their own.” Will reminded him. “We can’t neglect that.”

Especially not if they planned to have their base there. 

Especially-especially not if Zach’s guess was right and it was Warren’s own grandfather doing the killings. 

Taking out his keys, Warren opened the chain-link gate and lead Will up to his door. 

The door opened before his hand even touched the handle and Warren’s mother stomped out. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a leather jacket, her jeans torn strategically and her shirt cut to show off more skin. A studded belt that hung around her hips, drawing attention to just how wide and curved they were. Her pixie-bob hairstyle teased up and gelled. Her makeup smoky eyed with very little contouring. Her lipstick more of a dark burgundy instead of her usual cherry red. The kind of evening attire a person wore when they were looking for trouble, or wanted to be trouble. But not ‘trouble’ of the superhero variety. 

She paused when she saw her son standing on the porch. 

“Your friends came over uninvited and are occupying my living room.” She informed him, before stepping off the covered porch. She shot an acid look at Will Stronghold before jumping into the air and flying away. 

With a sigh, Warren stepped through the open door, dragging Will along with him. 

As his mother said, the whole gang was there. Ethan, Magenta, and Zach all sat on the floor surrounding his coffee table, sharing a bowl of corn-flour tortilla chips. He felt a sudden stab of panic wondering if Zach had shared his theory with them too, that it was Warren’s own grandfather killing things up in the mountains around Bedlam. But they didn’t look grim-faced, or suspicious, or sympathetic, or pitying –or any of the ways he imagined they might look if they thought it was someone from his family responsible. In fact, all three of them looked almost board. Like they’d been waiting for him for a while. 

Layla came in from the kitchen and set a bowl of salsa down next to the chips. 

“Oh, did Ms. Peace leave already?” She asked. 

Last year, during Layla and the rest’s senior year, Mara Peace –the hero known as Flamebird- had been assigned as Layla’s mentor. Overall, Layla liked Warren’s mother. She thought the older woman was guarded, maybe a little jaded, but genuinely a nice person who thought about things beyond traditional heroism, and cared about the aftermath of a villain fight just as much as the fight itself. Who had the forethought to prevent disasters like mud slides, and helped the community in less traditionally heroic ways like fixing sidewalks. In short, Flamebird had been exactly Layla’s kind of hero, and Layla genuinely liked her. 

Warren didn’t have the heart to tell Layla that his mother didn’t like her back. 

“She ran out of here the moment we heard Warren outside.” Ethan informed her. 

“I got the feeling she couldn’t wait to get away from us. But also didn’t wanna leave us unsupervised in her house.” Magenta added. 

Secretly, Warren winced at her statement. Magenta had no idea how right she was. Mara Peace did not like his friends. 

“I did get the feeling she was in a bad mood.” Zach agreed. 

Warren definitely, visibly, winced at that. His mother had been ‘in a bad mood’ for almost a year now. Ever since his father went back to prison. Barron Battle was out. He had been freed by Faultline’s earthquake. They were reunited, and for one long night of super-fights and team-ups, she was happier than she’d been in ten years. To spite everything, to spite him being a supervillain and her being a hero, to spite his crimes and her ethics, to spite hero-villain traditions… Mara Peace loved Barron Battle. 

After Faultline was defeated and the city safe, when the Commander and Jetstream were still distracted by the wrap-up, she tried to run away with him. Mara had everything ready. Almost as if she’d been planning a get away since before the earthquake and his escape. As if she’d had some other non-heroic plan that bordered on villainy in the works before Faultline did hers. She had fake passports and a backpack full of cash ready to go. 

But Warren refused to go with them. 

Mara meant to take both her husband and her son with her. The only two people in the world she still cared about. Leave Maxville. Go on the run with Barron Battle. Be fugitives from the law. Be… be supervillains. A family of supervillain. 

She planned for Warren to come with them. She wanted her son to come with them. She had a fake passport all made-up and ready to go for him. But Warren did not want to be a fugitive from the law. Warren did not want to be a supervillain. Warren refused to go. He stayed. He chose heroism, and Maxville, and his friends, and Will –the Commander’s son- over his own parents. 

Because Warren chose to stay, Barron Battle chose to stay as well. He had just discovered his son inherited a power from the Battle side of the family. An uncommon and frightening power, and Warren would need his father to guide and educate him. Battle turned himself in. Allowed himself to be put back in prison. Allowed himself to be ripped from the arms of the woman who loved him a second time. 

Mara had been bitter ever since. She’d been ‘in a bad mood’ ever since. 

But Warren wasn’t about to tell his friends that. 

“She’s…” he wasn’t quite sure what to say “…still adjusting to being a retired superhero.” He finally decided that was diplomatic enough, and it wasn’t like it wasn’t true. After almost running away with a supervillain, she couldn’t really continue as a hero anymore. Warren urged his mother to retire as Flamebird. But he didn’t want the group to think too much about his mother. “What are you all doing here?”

“You said there was something murdering around the murder cabin.” Layla reminded him. “If we’re all going to share the base we build there, then we should all share in making it safe.”

It sounded so nice and logical. 

Everyone pulled out laptops or iPads. 

“If you forward the email to all of us, we can help sift through the evidence and work together on the investigation.” Will informed him. 

“Ugh, fine.” Warren groaned. It wasn’t like he wasn’t appreciative of the help. It was that he was still more used to doing things on his own that he had trouble accepting help. Warren stomped into his room and got out his own laptop. A relic from 2004. It was six years old, practically ancient by tech standards. While almost everyone else in the room sported shiny new computers or even the new iPad that had just come out in April. He opened his Phoenix email, and forwarded the message the Bedlam Sherriff –whom the email named as Darryl Law- to the rest of the group. “There.”

He stomped into the kitchen to get an after work snack before getting to work on his other job. 

There was some uncooked steak in the refrigerator he’d defrosted that morning. Warren had been planning to marinate it and grill it. Glancing through the kitchen door back into the living room, he made sure no one else was watching him. When he was sure that he was out of sight, Warren grabbed the raw meat and bit into it. Cold, and bloody, and very, very red. Ripping the meat apart like a dog, but chewing, like a domesticated person, before swallowing. Then he took another bite. He ate half the steak raw before his body’s needs for flesh were satisfied and the uncooked meat no longer seemed appetizing. He put the half-eaten stake back in the fridge. 

His Dad told him that the cravings for raw meat were only after a death and resurrection. Dad sometimes craved raw meat after doing a lot of healing, but Warren didn’t inherit the healing ability along with the resurrection, so Dad thought that he wouldn’t have to worry about cravings otherwise. But for the past few weeks, going to school, working, and hero’ing as Phoenix, Warren was constantly exhausted and run down. His body started craving flesh very similarly to when he came back from his death. And after eating fresh flesh, Warren felt better. More awake, energized. Readying to take on whatever came next. 

Turning on the sink, Warren took extra time to very carefully wash his hands and mouth. Even going so far as to rinse his mouth out and pick his teeth just to make sure there was no evidence of what he’d just eaten left. Warren had told his friends he needed to eat more meat because of his second power. But he hadn’t told them –not even Will or Layla- that the flesh he craved was flesh that was as close to life as possible. Fresh meat. As close to newly slaughtered as possible. Uncooked. Untouched by fire. As nature made it. As a predator in the wild would eat it. 

Wiping his face on a kitchen towel, Warren wondered why it didn’t occur to him sooner that the thing in the woods killing animals and taking hearts was his paternal grandfather. It had all the tell-tale markings of a Battle family ‘death impaired’ craving for fresh flesh and hearts. 

When he came back into the living room, everyone was on their devices, reading the email Sherriff Law sent. 

“Dude, this guy added so many attachments.” Ethan commented. 

“I just asked for the crime scene photos that couldn’t be copied on their photocopier from the sixties.” Warren informed them. 

He sat down in front of his own ancient laptop and actually opened the email he’d forwarded to everyone without looking at it. Sherriff Law had sent him the entire case file, not just the crime scene photos, but also the documents Warren already had. The cryptid legends and tall tales were part of the main body of the email. They looked like they were all hand typed by the Sheriff himself, complete with typos and misspellings, and at the end of each passage was a note informing the reader of what attachments corresponded to the tall tale. There must have been over twenty. The limit of how many attachments could be sent in a single email. 

“Hey, listen to this.” Zach drew everyone’s attention to him as he began to read one of the stories. “’In the 1860s the school teacher’s fiancé was killed in the Civil War. Overcome with grief, she threw herself off the school’s bell tower. Now her ghost haunts the school, leading other young women to their deaths.’ And the attachments are all articles and case files from different years about suicides off the school’s roof.”

He turned his lap top so everyone could see the articles. Most didn’t have photos. But there must have been at least six of them, spread out over the years between 1865 and 1992. 

“That’s tragic.” Warren agreed. “But not what we’re looking for.” 

“Yeah, but if there’s an evil ghost haunting the town making people kill themselves, we should stop that too, right?” Zach asked. 

“Six suicides over the course of a hundred and thirty years is not a significant enough trend.” Warren informed him. “It’s more likely depressed teenagers who already decided to take their own lives and just adopted the method from the story.” A pause. “Besides, ghosts don’t exist.”

“You sound so sure of that.” Magenta observed. 

“Yeah!” Zach jumped on the offensive. “How do you know ghosts don’t exist?”

Warren just tilted his head to the side and looked at the other man. Glaring at him from behind his curtain of dark hair. He didn’t even have to say anything. Everyone was silently reminded. Warren died. Yeah, he was alive now. He came back from death. But he was dead. Stabbed through the heart and bled out. For a good five minutes, Warren was dead. For a good five minutes, Warren was gone. For a good five minutes, everyone believed Warren Peace was gone forever. 

But no one ever asked him where he went. 

In the space between death and life. 

Where had he been?

Zach lowered his eyes. “I guess if anyone knows, it would be you.”

Everyone went back to skimming over the urban legends and creepy pastas of the email. It was a little hard to believe this was composed by a ranking officer of law enforcement. But it was what the superhero asked for. 

Warren looked over the crime scene photos. Examining the close up shots of the ribs and the place where the hearts used to be. He tried to recall his father butchering the pigeon the night he resurrected. Warren was so hungry at the time. Ravenous. Almost mindless with a hunger he didn’t understand. He wasn’t watching Battle with the eyes of a student trying to learn. He couldn’t remember the cut his father made into the chest. If he bent the ribs or broke them. If he cut the heart out or ripped it. 

Studying the photos, the ribs were very clearly broken. Splintered to points. Bent back unevenly. Not by a rib spreader or a tool, but by primal strength alone. The aorta, both vena cava, and the pulmonary artery all looked torn. Twisted and ripped off, not cut. 

Examining the photos critically, the small details all pointed to an animal attack. There was no evidence of tools being used on the bodies. Everything done to them looked like it was done with bare hands. Except that the larger details, the wider shots denied all evidence of an animal attack. There were no teeth marks or claw marks. The main body was left mostly untouched. It was only the heart that was gone after. Not the throats, or legs, the places a predator would go for to bring down their kill. It was not an animal that killed these men, or the animals they found. 

But it was something with the savagery and driving instincts of a wild animal. 

Like a super driven mad by a craving so strong it overrode all other thought. 

Glancing up, Warren made sure everyone else was distracted by their own devices before opening a new window and Googling ‘Paladin’. When the first page was all article on the Dungeons and Dragons class, or historical pages on medieval warfare and the feudal system he refined his search to ‘the superhero Paladin’. 

The first hit that came up was an article about the Admiral, not actually Paladin himself. A newspaper article from 1962. It boasted that President Kennedy had requested the Admiral accompany the US blockade to prevent Soviet missiles reaching Cuba. The Admiral was quoted in saying that he’d happily serve his country, and invited his good friend Paladin to also come along. 

Warren stared at those two words for a second, almost not believing them. ‘Good friend’. It was a quote from the Admiral himself. They could not have printed it if the Admiral hadn’t said it. The Admiral and Paladin were good friends. 

The Admiral was Will’s grandfather, the Commander’s father. 

It was so weird that his Dad and Will’s dad were bitter enemies, yet their grandfathers were ‘good friends’.

Heading back from the article, Warren clicked the second hit on the Google search. This one actually was about Paladin, not just mentioning him in passing in an article about a more popular hero. 

It was a news story on Paladin’s sudden disappearance. While the Admiral usually fought large doomsday weapons and evil masterminds bent on world domination, Paladin traveled the world, keeping the peace between nations. Apparently, he fought in both World Wars (that would put Paladin in his mid-eighties when he disappeared in 1978, and, if in fact it was him stalking the woods now, then he’d be over a hundred), and he was determined to keep the peace and prevent a third. He was scheduled to meet at NATO’s 5th summit in May of 1978, but he never arrived. 

Warren scrolled down to look at an accompanying picture of the superhero. Not exactly wearing armor. It was a white linen tabard draped over a tunic of chainmail. Metal greaves covering his legs, and matching bracers over his arms. In the photo he wasn’t wearing a mask and his face was open and exposed. Dark eyes similar to Warren’s own, and curly hair like Barron Battle’s. But the hair was white, like an old person’s. But Paladin didn’t actually look all that old. He looked to be mid-forties to early fifties in the photo. Much too young to have fought in both World Wars. There was an emblem on his chest. It looked hand embroidered. Gold thread against the white linen. It was a little hard to make out. The photo quality from the 70s wasn’t as good as the high definition digital photography they had now. But it looked like a skull and an infinity sign. 

“Omg! You guys!” Magenta’s exclamation pulled him out of his research.

“What?” Warren snapped. 

“Listen to this!” She announced, her attention on what she was reading. “‘There used to be a family that lived outside of town. Higher up in the mounts where the woods were thicker. My Pa used to be friends with the husband. They had a regular poker night, him and three other guys. Always at a different guy’s house, they did a rotation. One night Hardy –that’s what my Pa always called the husband- doesn’t show up for the game, and instead Pa and Old Bob are called up to the house in the middle of the night. The wife tripped and fell down the stairs. Old Bob ruled it an accident and that seemed to be the end of it. Except a few months later the family’s truck was seen driving down the main road, everything they owned piled in the bed, and no one heard from Hardy again. Pa took a deputy with him and went up to the house, but the whole place had been smashed up. Not like a break-in. More like a big fight happened there. But there was no sign of Hardy or his son.’” Magenta looked up. “A cabin in the woods high up and away from town. That’s totally Mr. Battle’s murder cabin. This story is about him!”

Warren felt a stab of panic and he looked at Zach. Was he about to blurt out his idea that Warren’s grandfather was the one killing? The evidence was starting to become undeniable that that was what it was. 

Instead, Magenta cut him off before Zach could utter a word. “The attached document is the coroner’s report. Its dated March of 1978, that would have been Barron Battle’s and the Commander’s senior year of high school. You guys! Remember that outburst he had when he came across Royal Pain in the catacombs. They had their falling out because he was absent from school ‘cause his mother died. This was it! This is what he was talking about!”

“Okay, but we’re supposed to be figuring out how to stop a monster stalking the woods, not digging up gossip on my father.” Warren reminded the group. He glared at them all, using his most intimidating ‘son of a supervillain’ glare. It was far less murderous than it had been in freshman year before they were all friends. No one actually believed Warren would harm them. Not anymore. 

Ignoring him and his very clear warning, Magenta perused the coroner’s report. “’Anna Battle.’” She read. “Cause of death is listed as a broken neck from a fall. An accident. No case was ever opened. There was never an investigation. The report is signed by Robert Thomas, Medical Examiner, Pediatrician, and General Practitioner.” She looked up. “Wow, one guy for all that. Must be a small town.”

“Poor Mr. Battle.” Layla shook her head. “No one ever looked into his mother’s death. No wonder he became a supervillain, if the law failed him like that.”

“We’re not here to talk about my father.” Warren growled. Not even if it was to acknowledge how unfair his life had been, or that he might have had understandable reasons for becoming a villain. 

“Still,” Zach finally got a word in and Warren felt the beginning of a panic attack, “everything does seem to comeback to-“

“We’re not talking about my father!” Warren roared over the table. “It’s happening in the mountains where he used to live. Of course, there’s gonna be stuff about him! That doesn’t mean anything else! Don’t talk about my father!”

Everyone blinked up at him. Warren Peace hadn’t had an outburst like that since high school. 

“Maybe you should talk to your father.” Zach suggested. 

“Yes.” Magenta agreed, resting her chin in her hands. “When is your next visit with Daddy Battle.”

“Stop calling him ‘Daddy’.” Warren growled. “This week. And I already planned to ask him then.” 

“So that’s settled then.” Will smiled, as if this statement brought peace and a battle against Warren’s insecurities was just avoided. He held up his shiny new iPad so everyone could see the screen. “In the mean time, what do you make of this?” 

He zoomed in on one of the crime scene photos so that everyone could see there was something imbedded in the chest where the heart used to be. A flake of some kind. Thin, but not flimsy. Stiff. And yellowish. 

“What is that?” Ethan squinted at it. 

Layla took Will’s iPad from him, scrutinizing the segment he zoomed in on. “It kinda looks like… a finger nail. Like when you break a nail and the broken peace is left in what you broke it on.”

She broke plenty of nails working in her garden. She would know. 

Bears, and Bigfoot, and most other cryptids did not have finger nails. They had claws or talons –which looked very different from human nails. 

“If it’s not a monster from the woods, what if it’s a person from the town?” Will suggested. 

“Oh, yeah.” Ethan scoffed. “We’ll just go back up to that small town where everyone knows everyone and ask if anyone’s been killing their neighbors and ripping hearts out.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “That’ll go real well.”

“Places like that are more likely to turn around and say we brought whatever’s killing people and run us out of town instead.” Magenta informed them. 

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.” Layla was skeptical. 

Warren leaned back on his hands, more inclined to agree with Magenta and Ethan than Layla. In the parking lot of the gas station-diner-general store, the Sherriff did flat out say ‘this is a small town, we take note of strangers’. It was the standard kind of cliché said by someone from the kind of town that condemned outsiders as ‘untrustworthy’ and ignored the problems within their own community. 

“You ever hear of a ‘sundown town’?” Ethan asked. “Its means a town where the people are very nice and friendly during the day. Polite. Country manners. But if you’re not from there, then you better be out by sundown or-“ a pause as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, trying to think of a polite way to finish “-or they turn not so nice. Anyway, we were literally just passing through Bedlam, but even then, it’s very clearly a sundown town.”

“Guys, c’mon.” Will scoffed. “It’s 2010, not 1950. There’s no such thing as ‘sundown towns’.”

Ethan and Magenta exchanged a look. This might be something they wouldn’t be able to explain to Will, Layla, Warren, and Zach. They did not have the same kind of perspective of the world. 

Instead, Magenta cleared her throat. “Anyway… the point is, they’re not gonna like it when we –a group of outsiders- come in and start accusing their neighbors, whom they’ve known their whole lives, of being heart-stealing monsters.”

“We could search the wood instead.” Will suggested, still determined to be the arbiter of peace. “Like when they do search and rescue. Ya know. Grid the area, search systematically. Only instead of search and rescue, we search and arrest.”

“You gonna fly all of us back to Bedlam tonight, Stronghold?” Warren asked. “Because none of us have cars.”

Will shrugged. “I fly pretty fast, and it would only take three trips.”

“I fell asleep in class today.” Warren informed his friend. “I do need to sleep at some point this week.”

“I have a meeting in the morning.” Said Magenta, but no one had any idea what she did for a living.

“I have quarter-terms to study for.” Ethan added. “They’re like mid-terms, but a quarter of the way into the semester.” Of the six of them, Ethan was the only one actually working for a higher education degree. 

Layla passed Will’s iPad back to him. “Are you saying you don’t want to try and find or stop this thing because its inconvenient for you?”

The disappointment in her tone cut through Warren worse than if she’d yelled in his face and called him horrible names. As much as Warren wanted to be a hero and live down his father’s reputation, he wanted Layla to have a positive opinion of him even more. 

“Alright.” He nodded. Then turned to Zach. “Is Highlighter gonna be coming with us, or should I grab a couple of flashlights?”

Zach looked startled. 

Warren wanted to take him back into the woods where that thing was. That thing that may or may not be a super with the same power as Warren and Barron Battle. The power to not die. Sure, they were heroes and heroes didn’t kill anyway. But just the idea that it couldn’t be killed somehow made it scarier. That, and that it may be angry about being killed by his own son and out for revenge. None of them were Barron Battle, but Warren was Battle’s son. If the monster was Granddaddy Battle, he might decide to take revenge on Barron by hurting –or killing- Warren (not that Warren would stay dead, but the point still stood). 

Traipsing around the woods in the middle of the night next to Warren Peace was the last place Zach wanted to be. 

“Gee, I would...” He said. “But I’ve just go so much going on… Ya know.”

Of the six of them, Zach had the least going on in his civilian life. 

Magenta was secretive about what she was doing after high school. But they knew she was doing something. She and Will went to the same coffee shop and he often saw her there getting her morning latte before she went to wherever she went. Her hair twisted up into a more conservative version of her usual mouse-ear buns, wearing a pencil skirt, or pants suit, an ID badge with a keycard chip hanging from a lanyard around her neck. So, while she didn’t tell them what she did when she wasn’t being Scurry, they were all sure that she was doing something. 

Will was studying for his realtor’s certification. He was probably already ready to take the test, but it kept having to be postponed on account of his hero work as the Lieutenant. 

Ethan was a fulltime student at Maxville University, studying for a Major in Fluid Dynamics and a minor in Humanities. When he wasn’t in lecture or labs, he was studying. Ethan barely had time to be the superhero Liquidator.

Warren still maintained the same job he’d had since high school, as a porter at the Paper Lantern. In addition to that, he was also in his second year of culinary school, working towards one day having his own restaurant. One with a good manager that could run the place for him so that he’d have a steady source of income while he focused the majority of his time on being Phoenix. 

Layla was getting ready to leave Maxville at the end of the month. She was going to use her powers to help the world. Combat deforestation, famine, child hunger… Layla was on her way to single handedly save the planet. 

Zach was unemployed and not furthering his education in any way. He had no future plans, and when he wasn’t being Highlighter, the hero of light, he was sitting on his parents’ couch playing video games and eating chips. Of the six of them, Zach had the most free time and he did the least with it. 

“That’s fine.” Warren growled. Truth be told, Zach was the only other member of their group that suspected the creature in the woods was his paternal grandfather. The idea hadn’t occurred to anyone else yet. If Zach didn’t want to come along, that was just fine with Warren. “So, just me and Stronghold, then.”

“And me!” Layla smiled. “I wanna help too! This might be the last time we get to team up for a while.”

Magenta sighed. Smiling an ironic smile at some private joke only she understood. “And so, the Power Trio goes off on their own again.”


	5. Hereditary

The Lieutenant flew them back up to the woods above Bedlam. Right to the concrete foundation of where the old Battle house used to be. 

It looked even more bare and abandoned now. No remnants of a house covering it, and no tents pitched on it to give evidence of human habitation. Just a concrete slab, a segment of stone wall, and the stonework on the chimney and mantel. 

“Wow, Mr. Battle grew up here?” This was the first time Persephone was seeing it. Even in the dark, she seemed to like what she saw. But it wasn’t the empty foundation or the remnant of a chimney she was looking at. Persephone’s eyes were focused on the woods surrounding the house. Dense trees, tall grasses, thick bushes. A real forest. Wild. Untamed and allowed to grow freely. Nature unfettered. “It’s beautiful up here!”

Phoenix chose not to comment on that remark. Yeah, the forest was pretty. She should see it during the day! Green and lush, with the sun shining through the leaves washing everything in a golden-green glow. But it was also hiding a monster on a killing spree that may, or may not, be his paternal grandfather. Admiring the beauty of the woods was not even on his list of priorities. 

“So, what’s your plan, Stronghold?” He asked. “To do a real grid search we’d have to section off the area and split up to search. There’s only three of us and a lot of ground to cover. Its dark, and we don’t actually know what this thing is capable of.”

“Then we don’t split up.” The Lieutenant decided, as if this were the obvious solution. “We stick together. We’ll start here at the house and make our way to that other place you asked about. Echo Caves. That seems to be its hunting grounds. Between this property and those caves. What did the Sherriff call it? A natural game trail.”

“He said where the river drains into the lake was a natural game tail.” Phoenix corrected. Not that he was any kind of expert on game trails and natural water ways. He was just repeating what Sherriff Law told them the other night. 

“Which is close to Echo Caves, right.” The Lieutenant insisted. 

“Do you have a better idea?” Asked Persephone. 

Phoenix sputtered, put on the spot. Truth be told, he did not have a better idea. His plan was to wait until visiting day at the prison when he could see his father, then ask Barron Battle for his advice. If in fact it could be his grandfather, if it was, how did one subdue a super that healed instantly and couldn’t be beaten down, and couldn’t be killed. If it wasn’t his grandfather, then what else could it be, and how would a bunch of big city heroes track it in the woods. If the Lieutenant and Persephone wanted to do something about it tonight, then, no, Phoenix did not have a better idea. 

The pyrokinetic heaved a sigh. “Alright. Let’s go wandering around the woods like we know what we’re doing and get lost.”

“We won’t get lost.” Persephone assured them. 

“Remember, I can always just fly us out and back to the city if we run into trouble.” Lieutenant assured them both. They would not be like the protagonists in horror movies, the protagonists in horror movies never seemed to have superpowers. 

Phoenix didn’t so much ‘agree’ as he did heave a sort of groan of submission. They both wanted to wander around the woods in the dark. So, they would be wandering around the woods in the dark. 

“How large is the property, anyway?” Asked Persephone, genuinely curious. 

Phoenix shrugged. “Pretty big. I think the paperwork put it at just over twelve acres or something.”

“Is the plat squared off, or is it an odd shape?” Was the Lieutenant’s follow-up question. 

“The what?” Neither Phoenix nor Persephone understood the question. 

“The plat.” Repeated the Lieutenant. “The map of the property. The shape of the plot of land. Is it squared off, or an odd shape? The house was easily a whole acre back from the road, but do you own more road frontage than just the entrance to the driveway? Or is all the property behind the house?”

That was a whole bunch of questions that Phoenix did not actually know the answers to. “Does any of that have to do with what we’re doing here tonight?”

“Well, no.” Admitted the Lieutenant. “I was just curious. I mean, since we’re still planning to have a base here. We should know where the property lines are drawn. Don’t wanna have parts of the base extending out into public land, protected forest, or national parks.” 

“Okay, one thing at a time, Stronghold.” Phoenix reminded him. “First we get rid of the monster. Then, we go back to planning our base.”

He led them through the woods, one hand lit on fire for light, the other two carrying flashlights. Between the dark of the night and the denseness of the trees, visibility was poor and they had to move slowly. 

Every time they heard something moving in the brush around them or the branches above them, one or more of them with start. Thinking it might be the creature they were hunting, hunting them in turn. But every time, it turned out to be an animal native to the woods scampering away from the three large humans stomping through its woods. Rabbits, skunks, or dear. Owls, squirrels, or raccoons. Perfectly normal, non-deadly, animals that one would expect to find in the woods. 

Finally, they came to a sheer rock wall. A cliff rising up, out of the trees to disappear into the low-hanging clouds above. 

All three looked at each other. 

“I think we’re getting close to the caves.” The Lieutenant informed them as if this were news. 

They followed the line of the cliff, heading in the direction they assumed was the slope of the mountain. It certainly felt like they were traveling downward. 

The cliff was dotted by small crevices that an animal might be able to fit through. Something equally small, like an owl or a rabbit. But nothing big enough to fit an adult-human sized monster. Nothing big enough for any of them to consider a ‘cave’. Some of them had little trickles of water dripping from them. Tiny little springs bubbling up from some unknown source underground. Or dripping through the rock from the melting snows of higher elevations. 

They followed the cliffs until the damp earth turned into a stream. 

All the little drips and trickles from the smaller crevices collecting into a body large enough to be called a stream. It ran right along the cliff face, the water washing away the soil and digging down into the earth to reveal more of the rock. As the stream grew wider and deeper, morphing into something that might be called a river, it began to seem like the cliffs were rising up out of the water like the battlements of some aquatic fortress. 

Centuries of the water washing away the soil that supported the caves, or the run off from higher elevations freezing in the winter had broken off large chunks of the cliff face. Massive boulders poked up out of the surface of the water, creating light rapids as the current of the river beat against them.

Finally, they started to see what might be called ‘caves’ in the cliff face. Dark, shadowy places in the rock that the light from Phoenix’s flames couldn’t penetrate. 

The Lieutenant floated across the water to shone his flashlight in one up close. If he bent down, it was just big enough for him to slip inside. A damp muddy floor, with equally damp walls. 

“Huh.” He said thoughtfully to himself. 

The sound bounced off the tight walls of the narrow space. Throwing the Lieutenant’s own voice back at him. ‘Huh-huh-huh…’

He flew back out of the cave and across the water to rejoin his companions. “I think it’s safe to say we found Echo Caves.”

“Alright.” Phoenix growled, crossing his arms over his chest –he did not bother to extinguish his one burning hand, they still needed the light. “We walked the distance between the house and Echo Caves. I didn’t see anything. Did either of you?”

“Hang on, though.” Persephone stepped closer to the edge of the water, lowering the hood of her costume, she peered across the river. Scrutinizing the cliff face and the series of darkened shadows that may or may not be caves. “This thing’s got to rest some time, right? What better place to make its lair then a cave? Surrounded on three sides by rock, and the entrance is blocked by water. It’d be difficult for something to get at it in there. It would be a safe place to go after its attacks.”

“So, then we just have to find a cave big enough for something the size of a grown man to rest comfortably in.” Agreed the Lieutenant. 

Phoenix looked down at the river. The flow and current of the water was slow, but it was still very clearly flowing. Moving. He remembered one of the details his father told him about life with the Battle family power. ‘I’m not gonna say you can’t cross moving water, but the experience would be so unpleasant…’ There was no proof the monster they were looking for was his paternal grandfather. All the evidence that pointed to it being Hardwin Battle was circumstantial at best. That being said, Phoenix still found himself shaking his head at his companions. “Not one blocked by water.” He said. “This thing would use a cave it could walk into without having to swim.”

Both Persephone and the Lieutenant turned to blink at him. 

“You sound really sure of that.” Persephone observed. 

“Do you know something we don’t know?” Asked the Lieutenant. 

Phoenix hesitated just a moment too long. The other two exchanged a glance of suspicion between them before their companion thought of, and had the chance to blurt out a convincing explanation. “Highlighter’s description!”

“He said it walked on two legs.” Recalled the Lieutenant. That was all Highlighter had said the night of the deer stampede. “That’s not a very good description.”

“The next morning,” Phoenix tried to explain, “after we gave up looking, then and you flew Scurry and Liquidator back to camp, Highlighter told me more about what he saw while we were waiting for you. He said it was skinny. Like when a person is starved. Their skin pulled all tight so you can see their bones. And he said it had hair like an old person’s. He was describing something frail. Something lightweight that could be carried away and drowned by the current. It wouldn’t risk that. It would make its lair some place it could easily walk in and out of without having to risk its own safety.”

That explanation made perfect sense and did not imply that it might be Phoenix’s family at all. 

“The rocks.” Persephone suggested. “A lot of these rocks are big enough for a person to stand on. If we can find a line of them close together enough for a person to hop across, and that leads all the way to the other side, maybe that could be how it gets too and from its lair.”

Phoenix felt like he could kiss her right then. But he didn’t. Obviously. She was one of his best friends. He did not want to ruin their friendship. 

“I donno…” The Lieutenant continued to look skeptical. He crossed his arms over his chest as if in thought. “If it really is frail like a starved old person, then wouldn’t it also have trouble jumping across rocks. Those things aren’t exactly flat or even, and they’re wet and slippery. Jumping from one to another would take some agility and quick reflexes. How spry do we think this thing is?”

As spry as an immortal superhero that fought in two World Wars, Phoenix thought. Out loud he said, “As spry as something that can kill five loggers, two deer, and a bear that we know of.”

“So… it’s too frail to swim, but strong and agile enough to take down a bear.” Persephone summarized for them, pointing out the flaw in Phoenix’s logic. “Which is it?”

The pyrokinetic hesitated. Should he be honest with them? Share with them the theory that it might be Hardwin Battle –Paladin- that they’re hunting. A super with the same powers as his father –rapid healing and revival from death- and that he was subject to the same weaknesses that went along with those powers. A mind-altering craving for dense flesh, weakness and fatigue during the high point of the day, and an inability to cross moving water. (Phoenix was still a little unclear on what that meant exactly, but his father felt it important enough to mention along with the other necessities.) 

“Even if it’s not frail,” began the Lieutenant thoughtfully, “it’s got to be tired after taking down wild animals and people. It’s probably not gonna wanna swim against the current to get back to its lair.”

Phoenix felt like he could probably kiss him too. 

That was one of the great things about his two best friends. They were so good natured and trusting, the idea that he might be withholding information from them never even entered their minds. They took what he said at face value and even suggested explanations to fit with said limited information. 

“So, we keep wandering.” Persephone concluded. 

“We’re not wandering.” Argued the Lieutenant. “We’re following a trail.”

“We’re following a river.” Phoenix corrected. “That’s not the same as a trail.”

“Okay, but we’re not wandering.” The Lieutenant continued to insist. “We’re following something.”

Phoenix threw his arms up in defeat. Sure. They weren’t wandering and they weren’t lost. They knew exactly where they were and they were following something. There was just no guarantee that the river they were following would lead them to the creature they were looking for. 

If they had been paying more attention to the woods around them instead of the river or their argument with each other, maybe they might have noticed just how quiet things had gotten. The wind still whispered through the trees, rustling their leaves with the sound of a million quiet voices. But that was the only sound that came from the woods. The birds, the insects, the beasts, they were all quiet. Hiding in their dens. Silent and invisible. Hoping to go unnoticed by a predator. If the trio had been paying more attention to the woods around them instead of the river, they might have noticed a figure darting between the trees. Barely visible in the dark. Hanging just outside the flickering light provided by Phoenix’s fire. 

They might not be the ones doing the hunting. 

Keeping low to the ground. Walking on all fours. Spidery fingers splaying over the grass as it stalked palms-flat to muffle the sound. 

The creature had been following the trio since they landed in his domain. In the dark, his vision was no better than their own. But hunger sharpened his other sense. Even from far away, he could smell the life in them. The spike of pheromones from the tall one, perspiration from the other male, the very distinct scent of female menstruation. The hallmark smells of bodies that were alive. He could hear their hearts beating in their chests, the steady rhythm of healthy adults, with the quick pace of excitement. It was enticingly loud to the creature’s ears. 

He followed them from the clearing that some passive part of his mind told him was ‘Home Ground’. Some nameless formless part of himself that was buried deep under the layers of need and instinct that overrode all other conscious thought. The creature followed them along his own hunting trails. From the Home Ground to the cliffs, and the Moving Water. Three warm bodies, full of life, with hearts beating. The engine of life. He wanted them. 

Then they stopped moving. All three just loitering around, as if they did not know what to do. As if they were lost. Lost members of any herd were always the easiest to hunt. The creature should pounce on them now. There was only three of them, fewer than the herd of loggers he already fed on. But something held the creature back. Some primal instinct warning him that they –or at the very least, one of them- was also a predator. He hesitated, sniffing the air, searching for any scents that did not belong. 

There was a scent of fetial soil, fresh cut grass, apple blossoms, and sage. The smell of clouds before a new rain, of clear wind, and unpolished steel. Of a slow burning hearth, a steady rolling flame, fire burning… burning… The creature could not quite place what it was that fire was burning. It smelled familiar. But he couldn’t identify what or why. 

“Ah! How about over there!” The female suddenly exclaimed, pointing across the moving water. 

The male that was on fire raised his hand, lifting the light of the fire over their heads and casting it over the Moving Water. 

It illuminated a series of boulders cutting through the water, creating waves in the current that turned into rapids. The boulders led from the bank to a cave in the cliff on the opposite side. It was the cave the creature started using as a den since the physical shelter on the Home Ground disappeared. Then the creature realized, while he was hunting them, they were hunting him. That was why his instincts warned him of another predator! 

“I’ll take a look.” Announced the other male. 

In the dim light cast by the taller one’s flames, the creature watched him float off his feet and glide over the water. 

There were only two of them on the bank now. 

A herd divided was more easily fed on. 

The creature knew he should go for the one that was alone. But he could not cross the Moving Water without exposing himself to the other two first. Which means that if he wanted to feed on any of them, he had to feed on those two first. 

Their backs were to him. 

Standing, the creature stood, climbing to its full height. A tall, slender, pale figure seeming to rise up out of the brush and the dark behind them. In the shape of a man, but naked and skeletal thin. With white hair, long and matted tumbling down its back. Bears, equally dirty and tangled growing from too-thin skin stretched over the bone of its skull. Long, narrow limbs, the outlines of bone showing in the joints. Spidery fingers tipped in broken and yellowing nails. 

“Should one of us go with him?” Asked the female, oblivious to the danger that was behind them. 

“Stronghold can bench-press a Buick, he’ll be fine.” Scoffed the one with the burning hands. 

Taking advantage of their distraction, the creature leapt from between the trees. 

There was the heartbeat of a moment when the creature was in the air that he thought he would get them both in one quick strike. Pounce on the female, use her to smother the flames on the male, then while they were both dazed, break their ribs and feed on their hearts while they were still alive! 

But in the second heartbeat everything shifted. 

They both turned, the male moved to place himself between the creature and the female, while the female raised her arms, hands splayed. Two things happened at once. 

The branches of the trees the creature just leapt from behind reached down to grab him. 

His teeth closed over the warm forearm of the male on fire. 

Phoenix hollered in pain. 

Blunt teeth set in a strong jaw ripped through spandex and skin and creature tasted blood. But it was wrong, somehow. Blood, yes. Warm, and flowing, and alive. But also, somehow putrid. Like bad meat. Like it wasn’t fresh. Like it was dead already. Alive, but at the same time, also dead. 

Phoenix pulled his arm away, ripping more costume –and more of his own skin!- as he did so. 

The creature spit. Struggling in the branches, it tried to pull away, spitting out the taste of putrid inedible flesh, and snarling with rage. 

“Are you okay!?” Persephone looked at Phoenix, taking her eyes off the monster that was only loosely held by her plants. 

“Hold onto it!” Phoenix snapped. His uninjured hand closing over the wound on his arm. If there was ever a time he wished his got his father’s instant healing along with revival from death, it was times like these. 

Summoning some new vines, Persephone wrapped the creature more firmly to make sure it could not escape. Even going so far as to coil one vine around its mouth like a gag. To make sure it couldn’t bite anyone else. 

Phoenix ripped more of his costume to get a strip long enough to tie around his arm to try and stem the bleeding. He would let the Lieutenant and Persephone help him with a more formal and permanent dressing later. Right now, the monster that was stalking the woods had found them and Phoenix needed to assess if it really could be Hardwin Battle –his grandfather- or not, and he needed to do it fast before Persephone or Stronghold caught on. 

Pushing aside the pain in his arm that pulsed with every beat of his heart and throbbed every time he moved the muscle, Phoenix concentrated on his flames. Making them independent balls of fire that could continue to burn without contact with his hands, and float in the air to illuminate the area. He set them to float just above the creature’s head.

Grabbing a fistful of the monster’s wild white hair, he tilted it’s face up. The eyes were a wrong color. The sclera more of a sickly yellow than a proper white. Sickly yellow, and also bloodshot. Yellow and red. Definitely the eyes of a monster. But the iris was brown. A rich dark brown. Brown like the rock of the mountains, or the wood of the trees. The same shade of brown as Phoenix’s own eyes. The face was thin and sallow. The skin stretched and waxy. Gaunt. It looked more like a death mask than the features of a person. But the set of the cheekbones and the shape of the chin was familiar enough that it could be possible… this could be Hardwin Battle. 

The hard fact was, Phoenix still didn’t know. He couldn’t be sure. The only picture he ever saw of his paternal grandfather was an archive photo from a Google search of his hero name. 

He studied the rest of the monster. A long lanky body. If Persephone allowed it to stand, it would easily be just as tall as Phoenix was. But there was no definition to the muscles. The bones showed through the skin. The ribs poked out. There was the ghost of clothing hanging off it, just torn tatters of what might have a tone time been a pair of men’s slacks hanging off the bones of its hips, and the last vestiges of a polyester shirt from the seventies. But nothing that looked like Paladin’s old hero costume. No white linen, no chainmail, certainly no gold embroidered skull and infinity emblem. 

The creature just looked like a vengeful wight. The decidedly less impressive cousin of the Hollywood zombie. 

“Will, come back!” Persephone called across the water. 

For the briefest of moments, Phoenix experienced a moment of panic. He didn’t know why. If he couldn’t recognize any resemblance between himself and the creature, there was no way Lieutenant of Persephone would. Reaching into his belt, he pulled out his phone, made sure the flash was on, and took a quick photo of the monster for later study. He might not be able to recognize it, but he had a visit schedules with his father and Barron Battle should be able to recognize his own father –if, in fact, that’s what this was. 

The flash seemed to irritate the monster and it redoubled its efforts to free itself. Struggling hard against the branches and vines that entangled it. Pulling and thrashing with a strength no average mundane could manage. 

“Whoa!” The Lieutenant floated over to land between his friends. “That’s so uncanny valley! What do you think it is?”

Phoenix hesitated. Unsure of what kind of answer to give. 

Before anyone could offer a suggestion, however, the monster finally succeeded in breaking the branches of the trees holding it. Freeing one arm, the creature wrenched its body, intentionally dislocating a hip so that it could more easily struggle out of the vines entangling its lower half. Phoenix remembered see his father pull a similar trick, intentionally dislocating his shoulder to escape a hold. Apparently, it was a family trick –assuming one had the power of instant healing to back one up. 

Free now, the monster hobbled on unsteady legs, it’s hip healed out of place. 

Any one of them alone could take him down. 

The instinct now was to flee, not feed. 

But he was trapped between the trees and the Moving Water. The trees came alive at the female’s behest. The woods were hers, he could not flee into the trees. Not with the Lady of the Greenwood hunting him. But he couldn’t dive into the Moving Water either. He needed to touch the solid rock of the mountain to cross Moving Water. The line of boulders that lead to the other side. But those were blocked by the flying one. He was cornered. 

Being cornered made him vicious. 

Eyes wild, the creature looked between the three of them. Quickly studying and sizing up each one. Nose twitching as he scented the air, trying to discern which among them was their weakest link. The female was the most powerful of them. It wasn’t just that she called to the Green Wood, it was that power of the earth wafted around her. Solid as the rock of the mountains, ancient as the Great Oak, deep as the roots in the soil. She was the most formidable, he could not attack her. 

But he couldn’t pounce on the tall one with the fire either. He was not firm and unshakable like the earth, like the female was. He carried the scent of fire and unpredictability that came with it. Fire was wild, primal. One of the first powers. Fire, water, air, earth, quintessence. But more than that, he tasted of death. He was alive, the creature could hear his heart beating. But the flavor of dead meat was in his blood. He was like the creature. Like recognized like. They were of the same breed. The creature could not fight them. Not before he returned to full strength. 

That left the flying one. 

He smelled of power and of strength. But it was a young power and fresh strength of the New World. Of the steam engine and the atom bomb. His power did not come from the earth, or the primal elements, the quintessence of life. His power came from the world of man. It was young and new. That made it clumsy. He was the weak link. He was the one the creature could take down to escape this trio. 

He was also the one blocking the rocks that lead to the den in the cliffs of the mountain. 

The creature pounced on Will. Long spidery fingers gripping his shoulders, while bony bare feet clawed at his front. Will gasped an expletive and tumbled with the air, grappling with the monster, trying to pull it off himself. He finally managed to fling the creature away and it sailed through the air, twisting its body like a cat to get all four limbs under it. 

It landed with feet and hands on one of the boulders in the middle of the river. A pale slender body, spread over the rock. Elbows and knees bent up in a way that made it look more like some macabre insect than a man. It hissed at the trio, before turning and skittering over the rocks into the cave in the cliff. 

“It’s getting away!” The Lieutenant felt the need to state the obvious. 

“I have to go after it.” Phoenix growled, speaking more to himself than his friends. 

He jumped onto the boulder closest to the bank. Almost slipped on the wet rock, the heel of his boot just barely ghosting over the spray of the water. Inexplicably, for reasons Phoenix couldn’t readily identify, he felt an odd stab of panic. The monster in the woods didn’t scare him. Running full bore into a dark cave he had no idea of what was inside didn’t scare him. But allowing just a toe to breach the surface of the moving water of this natural river, than kicked in his ‘fight or flight’ instincts, warned of danger, and screamed ‘flight’!

Gloved hands gripping the boulder firmly, ignoring the pain in the bite on his arm where the muscles protested the strain, Phoenix pulled himself back onto the rock. Solid rock. Fallen from the mountain. Stuck in the river. Unmoving. Firm and dependable like the earth. Upright now, and balanced, Phoenix hopped from boulder to bolder. Taking more care in measuring his jumps and choosing his landings more carefully. He did not want to slip again and fall into the Moving Water for real. 

“Wait!” Persephone called after him just as he reached the cliffs on the opposite side and disappeared into the same cave the monster had. 

Both Persephone and the Lieutenant exchanged a look. 

“Did he just go off after that thing alone?” Asked the Lieutenant. 

“We have to go after him.” Nodded Persephone. 

Gathering his companion into his arms, the Lieutenant floated to the opposite side of the river and the cave. 

“Warren!?” The Lieutenant called after Phoenix. But the only answer was his own voice shouted back at him, echoing off of the cave walls sounding like many, many voices of many people. ‘Warren? Warren? Warren?’

The two exchanged another look. Following after Phoenix, who was in turn following after the creature, would not be as easy as they originally thought. 

They ducked inside the cave anyway. They could not let their friend go up against that thing without back-up or help. 

Deeper in the dark, Phoenix hear the sounds echo. ‘Warren? Warren? Warren?’ Sounding vaguely like the Lieutenant, but distorted. Bounced from wall to wall. Thrown around until it didn’t sound like him at all and it was impossible to tell which direction it came from. Phoenix turned one way at the sound, then another. Realizing very quickly that he suddenly didn’t know where the entrance to the cave was anymore. He left the Lieutenant and Persephone outside, so they had to be calling from the entrance, but with the voice bouncing all around, he had no idea where that was anymore. 

In only a few short moments, Phoenix was all turned around and lost. 

He lit his other hand on fire to give himself more light. The flickering of the flames reflecting off the damp cave walls. 

The cave was a lot wider on the inside. The passage branching off into multiple tunnels and shafts. Phoenix didn’t know which one the creature when down, and –unlike his father- he was not a hunter and did not know how to track his quarry. He tried to look for signs, like Battle did when they were in the catacombs under Maxville, tracking Faultline. Eyes to the ground, looking for disturbances in the dirt that might indicate movement. Footprints, or tracks, or scraping. 

The floor of the cave was mostly stone. Wet stone. But still just stone. There was a bit of mud and leaves tracked in, but not enough to leave footprints in. Not enough to form a trail. 

In the absence of a trail, Phoenix made a guess. Choosing the passage where the floor looked smoothest. The creature was barefoot, so running over jagged rock could not be comfortable for it. 

“I’m taking the right path!” He shouted behind him, hoping that was the correct direction to aim his voice for Persephone and the Lieutenant to hear. He needn’t have wondered about the direction. The echo of the caves did the same thing with his voice as it did with the Lieutenant’s. Bouncing it off the walls so that it sounded like his call was coming from every direction at once. ‘taking the right path! Right path! Right path!’ Making it just as impossible for them to know where he was, as it was for him to know where they were. 

“What?” Came back the answering call. Sounding like it started from a different direction than the first time Phoenix heard his friends. ‘What? What? What?’

But Phoenix couldn’t turn back to look for them. He had to find the creature. Preferably before they did. He needed to know. He needed to be sure whether or not the monster in the woods was his paternal grandfather or not. 

With one of his hands already on fire, Phoenix marked the tunnel he took. Blackening the wall on the side of passage, leaving behind a sooty handprint. Fingers tilted to the side so that all four were pointing at the tunnel he took. Then he ran into the dark alone. 

His boots echoing through the cave, making him sound like a small army of many instead of the one, alone, that he was. 

“Warren?” This time the call echoing through the caverns was Persephone’s voice. They were still searching for him. ‘Warren? Warren? Warren?’ “Where are you?” ‘Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?’

Phoenix put another burning hand to the wall to keep marking his path. A flat palm, leaving behind a blackened hand print. Once again making sure the fingers were angled pointing in the direction he was traveling. He turned his head behind him again to call to his friends. “Follow my marks!” ‘My marks. My marks. My marks.’

He turned back around-

-and came face to face with the death-white face of the creature he was perusing. 

Phoenix gasped, his hands balling into fists and his flames rising to illuminate the dark. Staring at those sunken eyes, the tight skin pulled over bone, giving the face a skull-like quality, yellow teeth barring a warning at him. ‘A predator is staring you in the eyes. Do not blink.’ Cried some primal part of his brain, close to the one that identified danger and controlled his ‘fight or flight’ impulse. ‘Stay calm. This could go one of two ways.’

The creature tilted its head. Wrongly colored eyes moving in sunken sockets. Studying him. Wasted, wiry muscles knit its brows together as the monster stared at the mask, perplexed. It was trying to see his face, searching for familiarity. Just as Phoenix had done to it outside. He realized then that the eye-sockets of his mask were whited out and hid his eyes, the creature was searching for his eyes but could not see them.

Inexplicably, Phoenix didn’t know where the impulse came from, but he found one hand extinguishing its flames and raising up to peel the latex mask from his face. 

Running a hand through his hair to push it away from his face, he met the monster’s eyes again. 

He saw the moment of recognition when it dawned on the creature. Sunken yellowing eyes blinking, recognizing the set of his brows and the shape of his cheekbones. The color of his eyes. A deep rich brown, made all the more vibrant by the glow of the fire. The creature recognized him. 

Or- at least –the creature thought it recognized him. 

Eyes tilting down, the creature looked at his other hand, the one still on fire. Not a torch, or a match, or a tool of any kind. Not burning wood, or oil, or tender. Fire given life under its own power. His own power. Lifting its eyes again, the creature returned it’s study to Phoenix’s face, the hair surrounding the face. Straight, not curly. …and-

One skeletal thin, bony, and spider-like finger out to Phoenix’s hair. 

Every logical thought in the other man’s head screamed at him to pull away. To keep out of danger. Defend from an attack. But it wasn’t an attack he was sensing from the action. It was curiosity. A question. The monster was confused, not aggressive. Phoenix leaned forward into motion. 

A dirty, broken fingernail hooked on the strands of red in his hair, pulling them forward, bringing them closer to its sunken eyes. 

Red hair, and natural fire. 

It bent its head down. To Phoenix’s arm. To the still open bite. The unhealed bite. The costume was torn, the skin broken. But the bleeding had stopped. The wound would heal, eventually, with time. Phoenix did not inherit his father’s ability to heal instantly. Only the ability to come back from death. 

Whatever the creature might have smelled when it sniffed the wound, Phoenix couldn’t guess. 

Those sunken eyes met his again. 

Thin lips parted and sound came out. A guttural mumbling that might have been the vague beginnings of language. Was the creature trying to speak? It coughed. Cleared its throat. Tried again. Still only course throat noises. Nothing so clear or identifiable as words. 

Phoenix waited. 

The creature opened its mouth wider, displaying flat yellow teeth that were brown on the inside. Stained from time spent in a grave, or maybe from the life lived before that. It tried to clear its throat again, sounding like a cat trying to hack up a hairball, or a person trying to expel phlegm from their windpipe. Some blockage of rot or stiffness of rigor that hadn’t yet been regenerated by all the lives it took and flesh it had eaten. 

“Nn… not…” The creature finally managed to croak out. Voice scratchy and thick. As if it was unused to using it. As if it hadn’t spoken in decades. As if it hadn’t uttered a word in over thirty years. Voice bouncing off the walls, like every other sound in the caves. ‘Not… not… not…’ “…not… Barron…” ‘Not Barron. Not Barron. Not Barron.’

Phoenix didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he felt himself exhale. His suspicious and fears confirmed. 

“No.” He informed the creature –his grandfather, Hardwin Battle- “I’m Barron’s son. Warren.”

Shock flashed across the creature’s- Hardwin’s –face. The shock of recognition. Of realizing that Barron Battle –his own son- was not only no longer a child and was old enough to have a child of his own, but that that child was old enough to be grown and hunting monsters in the dark woods alone. The shock gave way to something bordering on concern. 

“Hardwin?” Phoenix ventured. 

Those sunken eyes flashed again. “How… long…?”

Phoenix paused, unsure if the creature his paternal grandfather had become was prepared for the shock. If Hardwin Battle was killed in 1978, then he had been gone for 32 years. That was almost half an average human lifespan. He’d missed so much. Three decades. The turn of the century. The turn of the millennium. His only grandchild’s entire childhood. 

After a prolonged hesitation, Phoenix opened his mouth to answer. 

“Warren!” ‘Warren. Warren. Warren.’

But he didn’t get the chance to answer. 

Persephone and the Lieutenant finally caught up with him, following the marks he left for them specifically to follow. Phoenix did not think that part through too well. He did not want them to find the creature now that he was sure it was, indeed, his grandfather. Phoenix looked behind him to see just how close they were. 

The light of their flashlights could been see reflecting off the walls from around a bend. They were very, very close. Close enough to have heard the echoes of his short conversation –if one could even call it a conversation- with the creature. ‘Not Barron.’ ‘No. I’m Barron’s son.’ Were they paying attention? How much did they know now?

Phoenix turned back to the creature –Hardwin- unsure of what to do. 

But when he turned back around, Hardwin was gone. Disappeared into the dark and lost in the labyrinthine network that was Echo Caves. 

Phoenix was alone when Persephone and the Lieutenant caught up to him. 

“Are you okay?” Asked Persephone. “Your mask is off!”

“We heard voices.” Announced the Lieutenant. “Did you find the monster?”

“I-“ He didn’t know how to answer. Phoenix didn’t like lying to his friends, but this was also something he felt he just couldn’t tell them. “I don’t know what happened.” He finally admitted. That, at least, was true. Phoenix really didn’t know what had just happened. He seemed to have had an oddly meaningful moment of connection with the creature. They they showed up. “But the creature’s gone now.”

Raising his flashlight, the Lieutenant shone his flashlight farther down the tunnel, seeing that the passage branched off again. “We’ll just get lost if we try and follow it in here.”

“You’re bleeding.” Persephone took Phoenix’s hand in hers noticing the bite on his arm for the first time. The wound was not reopened or actively bleeding. But the costume was torn, exposing the ripped skin and dried blood. 

The Lieutenant came back over to them, shining his flashlight on his friend’s arm instead. The wound looked dirty. Not just crusted over with dried blood, but dirt and… whatever else was in the monster’s teeth. “We need to get this cleaned. You could get an infection.”

“What’s it gonna do? Kill me?” Scoffed Phoenix. He might get an infection, and he might die. But he would rise from his death bed just as strong and healthy as he was before the bite. That was his second power. The one power he inherited from his father. Revival after a death. The threat of death did not carry the same kind of permanence for him that it did for other people. The threat of death was not so frightening. He knew where he would go, and that he would come back. 

Both Persephone and Phoenix just looked at him, unappreciative of his devil-may-care attitude. They watched him die once already, stabbed in the chest. Lieutenant pulled the bayonet out of his chest and was horrified to watch his friend bleed out even faster because of his efforts to save him. Phoenix might not think much of his own death –or deaths as the case may be in the future- but his friends sure had a thing or two to say about watching him die. Mainly that they didn’t want to. 

“Relax, Stronghold.” Phoenix told his. “Have you forgotten my fire?” He held up one hand still wreathed in flame. “I can just burn out any infection before it sets in. It’s what I did to my tattoos after I got them.”

The other two did not look convinced. 

“I’m flying you back to your mom’s.” Announced the Lieutenant. 

He grabbed both Phoenix and Persephone and flew out of the caves, using the sooty handprints Phoenix left on the walls to guide their way out without getting lost. Then they were in the air above the woods. Coasting down the mountains. Over the city. Heading north to Maxville Adjacent. The Lieutenant landed in Mara Peace’s back yard. 

It was so late now, it could be called ‘early’. The dark of the night giving way to the barest hints of morning glow as the sun began to peek over the mountains. 

Mara was still not home to spite the fact that it was well past bar-closing time and, in fact, closer to café-opening time. Phoenix opened the door to an empty house. Mom had been spending more and more time out on her days off. She still worked a civilian day job, but now that her nights were no longer filled with herowork, she was filling her free time with other activities. Activities she did not discuss with her son. Phoenix had no idea where his mother went or what she did, and that concerned him. 

But he had other concerns at the moment. 

The Lieutenant held Phoenix’s arm over the kitchen sink –something Phoenix could have easily done himself- and ran warm water over it. 

Phoenix did not need help bandaging his wound, but after five years of friendship, he finally learned that sometimes he just had to let the Lieutenant and Persephone take care of him. Not because he needed the help, but because they needed to know for themselves that he was, in fact, okay, and not covering up pain and weaknesses for whatever tough-guy reasons he convinced himself he had. The fact that his friends genuinely cared about him and worried about him was the thing that took the longest for Phoenix to get used to. Now that he was used to it, he understood that letting them care for his well-being was him caring for their well-being as well. 

Persephone emerged from the bathroom with a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a tube of anti-biotic ointment, and a roll of sterile gauze. 

Heaving a sigh, Phoenix let her wash the wound that Lieutenant already washed with water, with antiseptic. Then bind the wound with the gauze. 

“Are you satisfied?” He asked when she was done. 

Persephone nodded. 

“Well, we found the monster.” Announced the Lieutenant. “Then lost it again.”

“I least we know what we’re looking for now.” Persephone reassured them. Then paused. “Or, what you’re looking for. I might have to leave before it’s found.” 

Her plane ticket was already paid for and was non-refundable. She was leaving to save the world. Persephone had larger concerns than one lone monster in a small hamlet in North America. Besides, Phoenix and the Lieutenant were smart and capable heroes. They didn’t need her. 

Both men looked downcast at the reminder of her immanent departure. 

Then the Lieutenant cleared his throat, changing the subject by bringing them back to the matter at hand. “I would like a little more information before we go back out there.” He said. “Maybe Mr. Battle can tell us something about it?”

Phoenix nodded. He had quite a few questions for his father as well. “I have a visit with him coming up soon, and I will definitely be asking him about what I learned tonight.”


	6. Cold Case

A bell dinged as the door to the Bedlam gas station/general store/and restaurant was opened. 

Carl, the business owner, looked up from the magazine he was reading. Seeing another out of towner. Lotta people from outta town been passing through Bedlam since them Parasol loggers got killed. Teenagers from the city camping in the woods, and –if Darryl was to be believed- superheroes too. 

This guy didn’t look much like a super. He was wearin’ what looked like a security uniform, not a garish spandex costume. As he came closer to the counter, Carl could clearly see the logo of the Parasol Corporation. Definitely not a superhero, then. Some corporate lackey come to look into the killing of their guys. A corporate lackey, or a mercenary. He looked a little rough to be a true corporate suit.

Completely bald, but with a thick beard of pepper-gray hair. It was cut short to his face, and shaped with sharp angles that made him look severe and intimidating. Authoritative and commanding. 

But the most striking feature was his missing eye. His left eye. The man wore a patch over it, covering the worst of the damage. But there was a deep scar cutting down from his forehead to his cheek, right though the eye socket. There was a dark inky blue-black line woven into the scar, almost as if he were tattooed as he was cut.

“You here ‘bout them loggers that got killed?” Carl asked. 

“I’m here for what killed them.” He announced. Reaching into a breast pocket, he pulled out an ordinary and mundane business card, and passed it to Carl. The card identified him as Ian Ward, Head of Security of Parasol Corp. Research and Development division. 

Picking up the card, Carl studied it confused. 

“The thing escape your lab or somethin’?” He demanded, righteously angry. That thing was killing animals and people around his town! His neighbors were scared. He was scared. His kids were in danger! How dare they! Except… Parasol Corp didn’t have any buildings –research or otherwise- anywhere in these mountains. Least, none that he knew of. 

“No.” Ward assured him. He reached across the counter and pulled a neatly folded tourist map out of a wire display. (The map was from the 80s. Bedlam hadn’t had any serious tourism in over 20 years and so never felt the need to print new maps.) Ward spread the map out on the counter. “Can you show me where the majority of the attacks happen?”

Carl looked the guy up and down again. Dressed in a security uniform, but not the suit and tie kind of security of business lobbies. It was steel gray fatigues, combat boots, and a tactical vest. All stamped with the Parasol Corp logo. The kind of security that patrolled secure compounds and top secret facilities. The kind of security that actively engaged in with hostiles instead of just standing around and people watching behind sunglasses. He looked like he was ready for a fight.

“Don’ know where them loggers were killed.” Carl admitted. Darryl wouldn’t talk about an on-going investigation. He was professional like that. Took his job as Sherriff seriously. But then, if this guy was from Parasol, he probably already knew where his own company’s employees were sent out to. He didn’t need Carl to tell him. He placed his finger on the map near Echo Caves. “I been finding lots’a things round here, where the riven drains into the lake.”

With a nod, Ward folded the map back up. Glancing at the faded price sticker from 1989, Ward took a dollar and two quarters out of his pocket and set them down on the counter. He turned to leave. 

“It’s all narrow hiking trails that side of the lake leading up to the caves.” Carl volunteered. “You’d have better luck going in from the main road ‘round the other side.” He beckoned Ward to come back and unfold the map again to show him. 

Taking a highlighter out from behind the register, Carl marked on the map the rout he suggested. Following the newly paved and expertly maintained logging road until he suddenly cut off the highway into –on the map, at least- what looked like wild land. 

“There’s a dirt road here.” He explained as he highlighted the path. “Hard to see unless you know it’s there. Turns into a driveway that ends at an old cabin. It’s still a hike to the caves from there, but it’ll be shorter and not uphill, so easier too.” 

“Private land?” Ward asked. 

“Yeah…” Carl admitted. “But the family’s been missing for years. No one’ll object.”

Ward chose not to comment on the owners of the property being ‘missing’ not just ‘gone’ from the area. “Anything else?”

“That’s about it.” He confirmed. 

Refolding the map, this time with the rout Carl had highlighted for him displayed on the outside, Ward turned again and exited the general store. 

He climbed into the passenger side of a large transport wagon –also bearing the logo of the Parasol Corporation on the time- and slapped the map down on the dash. With a look to the driver, he pointed to the tiny space on the map where Carl told him to turn off the road. 

“There’s a dirt driveway here.” Ward explained to the driver. “It’ll take us into the woods, closer to the target.”

“Roger, Boss.” Nodded the driver. 

The armored wagon pulled out of the gas station parking and back out onto the main logging road. 

‘Dirt road’ was right. It was narrow. The transport wagon didn’t fully fit on it and armored sides of the vehicle mowed down bushes and shrugs, or broke blanches clean off their trees. The cabin and the back holding container jumped and shook, bouncing everyone in their seats. The soldiers in the back all checked to make sure the safeties were on their weapons, and their hands were off the triggers. No one wanted to be the idiot who discharged their weapon in an enclosed space just because the wagon ran over a divot in the dirt. 

Where the road ended looked like someone had been there recently. The property wasn’t quite as abandoned as Carl led Ward to believe. 

A series of tree stumps led up the hill. All freshly cut by the looks of them. No more than three days old. The exposed inner rings of the trunks still a bright amber-tope color instead of the darker, brown-gray of weathered wood. Someone had been here, and been here recently. Was someone else pursuing the target? Or, had the target dispatched the one who had been here? Carl did say the family that owned this private land was ‘missing’. Not moved away, or left, or on vacation, or even the more ambiguous ‘gone’. No. He specifically said ‘missing’. 

“Keep going.” Ward ordered his driver. “Take us as far up as this thing can.”

With a nod, the driver stepped on the gas again, rolling over the fresh-cut three stumps. Making the wagon bounced and jump even more. Causing the soldiers in the back to grip onto edge of their bench to keep from being thrown all over the chamber. 

The armored wagon drove around a large concrete slab. What looked like it might have at one time been the foundation of a very nice country cottage. But all that was left was a cement rectangle, and the stone mantle of a fireplace and chimney. The wagon pulled around it. Going right up to the tree line on the far side, then stopped. The driver putting it in park and cutting the engine. 

Back doors opening, the soldiers fanned out. Setting up a perimeter around the clearing. Making sure the area was secure. 

“No sign on the target, sir.” They announced. 

“We did find something interesting, though.” Another informed Ward.

“Define ‘interesting’.” Ward commanded. After over ten years as Warden of Maxville Penitentiary, overseeing supervillains with powers ranging all across the ‘super’ spectrum, the word ‘interesting’ had lost any significant meaning to him. 

Nodding that he would show him, the soldier lead Ward across the clearing to the south, where the land sloped up slightly. Into the trees. They trudged for only about six or seven meters before coming to a hole in the ground. 

The dirt bowed out and curling up. Like sidewalk slabs forced upwards by tree roots. Something from underneath pushing up and forcing its way out. So, not a hole that had been dug. A hole left behind from something digging itself out. It was a bright day and the sun was high in the sky, but under the tree cover, with the thick foliage dimming the light, Ward still needed to use his tactical flashlight to see down into the opening. 

An old trunk. Vintage. Like from the seventies. The hinges and lock all broken, the lid askew. Bending down next to the hole, shining his light inside, Ward tried to discern what –if anything- was inside the trunk. His light fell on a rusty kitchen knife. Serrated, like a steak knife. The blade stained reddish-brown. Also, an old plastic bag from Pantry Pride market, a chain that went out of business in the 70s. An old belt, the leather cracking and peeling. And a sewing needles. But nothing living. Not even bugs. No worms, or beetles, or spiders, or even ants. 

Clicking his pen light back off, Ward stood. “Congratulations.” He announced dryly. “You found their old garbage dump.”

“But, sir, the ground-“ The soldier tried to argue before remembering that he was not paid to have an opinion, he was paid to dart monsters with tranquilizer and drag them back to Parasol’s labs for research, so the corporation could develop new technologies. And he was paid very well for what he did. 

“What was that, soldier?” Ward glared at the tinted visor of his mask. 

“Nothing, sir.” He quickly amended. “I’m sorry for wasting your time with this, sir.”

Ward nodded, accepting the apology. “Grid off the area and divide the men into two teams to search the woods. Everybody checks in every 15 minutes. Someone goes silent, assume the target neutralized them.”

The soldier paused. “Does that mean we should converge on their position, or… leave them for dead…”

Ward growled wordlessly, not answering the question and the soldier decided to take that as a dismissal. He turned and headed back to the wagon to convey their orders to the rest of the unit. 

Alone now, Ward knelt back down next to the hole. He’d worked with enough criminals over the years to be able to recognize an unmarked grave when he saw one. Reaching into one of the pockets on his fatigues, Ward pulled out a pair of latex gloves and a stack of sealable bags. He bagged the knife first. An old kitchen knife, simple, and mundane, the Buffalo China makers mark just barely visible under the layer of caked-on filth. The needle was next. Then the Pantry Pride market bag. Finally, the belt. Each one going into an individual bag, carefully labeled and sealed. He also took samples of the soil, inside the hole, just next to it, and ninety centimeters away from it –just like the nerds in the lab showed him how. Even if they didn’t find the target, they would still have some fun gross dirt from its grave to play with. That should at least keep Eve Darling satisfied. 

The samples were packed away in the wagon. 

Ward then settled in to wait while the rest of his team searched the mountain for the target. 

He sat in the wagon with the driver, listening to each unit of the divisions check in. Confirm that they were alive, inform base camp –Ward in the wagon- what second of the grid they covered, and whether or not there were any sightings. There were none. 

Most of the day was spent like that. 

Until the sun started to dip down over the horizon, the trees casting long shadows and playing tricks on the eyes. 

Ward yawned, almost tuning out the radio by this point. 

“Found a cave system.” Announced the leader of Team Two. 

“Leave a transponder near the entrance to maintain radio contact.” Ward ordered. The last thing he needed was for the team to get lost in some remote mountain cave and him not even know because the rock blocked radio signals. 

“Already done, sir.” He could hear the nod in the voice. 

What followed next was a semi-dull narrative of damp stone, jagged rock, multiple shafts and tunnels. Then, “There’s a mark on the wall, sir. Like it’s been burred. It looks almost like a hand. A burned handprint, sir.”

Reaching behind him, Ward pulled the tablet that held their mission briefing on it. He double checked what the knew about the target already. It appeared in the woods not long after Faultline’s terrible quake last year. Mostly only killing small animals. It’s first human victims were only less than a week ago. Parasol’s own employees, loggers from the Natural Resources division. A study of the scene showed a violent attack by something strong enough to break bones, and quick enough to take out four adult men with weapons before any of them could put up a significant fight. But the scene didn’t have any burns or singes, or signs of fire powers or incendiary attacks. That meant that the team was either pursuing a different mountain cryptid than the one they were sent out for, or else the target had more abilities than they initially thought. 

Or, the burned hand print could be unrelated. 

The point was, they did not know. 

“Proceed with caution.” Ward ordered. Then remembered they were in a narrow cave, the advantage of team’s numbers nullified by the tight corridor walls. “Do not engage target inside the cave. If you do find it, draw it outside. Team One will meet you for back-up.”

“Acknowledged.” Announced the leader of Team One, before the leader of Team Two radioed back. 

“There’s a second handprint farther back.” Narrated Team Two leader, the channel crackling as they explored deeper into the cave system. “I think they’re supposed to be markers, like marking a trail, or giving directions.”

“You’re not walking into a trap, are you Team Two?” Jeered the leader of Team One over the channel. 

“No.” A person could hear Team Two Leader wrinkling his nose and shaking his head. 

Even over the crackling channel. The deeper they went into the cave, the more static and interference there was. Even with the transponder at the entrance relaying the signal. If they ventured farther under the mountain the signal would degrade further. Deep enough and they wouldn’t be able to hear them at all. They could engage the target and Ward would have no idea. 

The radio crackled. 

Ward yawned. 

Next to him in the cabin, the driver yawned too. 

The radio continued to crackle. 

“Find anymore handprints.” Ward asked, with a bit of a sarcastic tone. 

Only the crackling ‘silence’ of the radio answered him back. 

“Hey, Team Two, you still there?” Ward asked again. “Or did Gollum eat you, precious?”

At first, the only response that came back was just the crackling radio. 

Then, “-engaged-! -hostile-! I repeat: we have encountered-! Request- -up!” 

Ward sat bolt upright, one hand reaching for his own tranquilizer rifle, while the other squeezed the radio button. “Team One, did you copy? Team One. Team Two is engaged with one or more hostiles in the cave. Move to back them up. I’m on my way.” He jumped out of the wagon. Then, to the driver, “Stay here. Keep the engine hot. We’ll either come back with a new pet for Darling, or else need to get the hell outta Dodge fast!”

The driver nodded. He knew his job. 

Slinging his tranq gun over one should, Ward sprinted through the woods, on his way to rendezvous with Team One, before they got to the cave Team Two was in grappling with the hostile(s). 

Ward and Team One arrived at the cave at the same time. Or, more accurately, they arrived on the riverbank opposite the cave, right in front of the boulder path that lead to the cave entrance at the same time. 

Two, out of a team of seven, came running out of the cave, both shouting for the other to “Move! Move! Move!” and screaming profanities. One tripped on the uneven rock and fell into the river, almost being swept away by the current, except the strap of his gun caught on a rock. He climbed onto the boulder and out of the water just as a creature stalked out of the cave after them. 

Tall. Not inhumanly tall, but tall. Easily over a hundred and eighty centimeters. But with no muscle definition to it. It was all just skin and bones. Pale, waxy-white skin stretched other thick bones. White hair that was filthy and matted, falling down its back in tangles and clumps, bits of leaves, and twigs, and dirt stuck in it. A beard growing from the chin equally al filthy and tangled, but also wet. Wet by something of a deep red color.

“Where’s the rest of your team?” Ward demanded as the guys from Team One helped the two balance as they jumped off the rocks and onto dry ground. 

“It- it ate them!” Screamed one of them, half hysterical. 

“Me cago en la hostia.” Muttered the other. 

Ward looked back up, taking note of the wet red stain that dripped from the creature’s beard. “Oh.” 

If anyone was going to say anything else, they didn’t get the chance to. All other thoughts or witty remarks were cut off abruptly when the creature went down on all fours and spider-skittered across the boulders faster than it looked like it should have been able to move. 

“Fuck!” Shouted someone. 

Everyone brought their rifles up, several tranquilizer darts hitting the creature at the same time. The tranq formula was a powerful cocktail that Darling assured Ward could drop an elephant. But all it did was slow the creature a little. 

It swayed just as it reached the bank. Staggering on skeletal-thin legs. But it did not fall over. It blinked its sunken eyes, shook its head as if to clear it, then raised a boney hand to brush the empty darts off itself. 

Ward stared. It wasn’t immune to the tranquilizer. But it recovered fast enough that the chemical was already out of its system before the monster had the chance to pass out. Ward cursed. He hates monsters, and supers, and beings with powers of fast recovering or accelerated healing. His left eye was taken by a super with the power of fast recovery and accelerated healing. 

Back when he used to be Warden of Maxville Penitentiary. A prisoner by the name of Barron Battle –nasty piece of work, supervillain and international assassin- managed to break into his office and attack him with his own fountain pen. Slashing down over Ward’s face, cutting through eye-brow, eye-ball, and a little of the cheek below. Ward lost his left eye because of the attack and it left him with a righteous hatred for –not just Barron Battle- but all supers and monsters that reminded him of Barron Battle. 

Dropping his tranq rifle, Ward pulled out his side arm. His gun. With real bullets, not tranquilizer darts. 

His first shot caught the creature in the gut. Opening up a hole in its belly and blowing out of its back as it exited. The creature staggered backwards, stumbling. It looked like it might go down. Dark blood that smelled foul, like rotten meat, bubbled from the open wounds. 

But then the bullet hole began to close. The bleeding stopped. The waxy skin knitting over the wound. The creature was healing. Rapidly healing. Right before their eyes. Just like Battle. 

Ward hated it on sight!

His second shot was better aimed. Right between its yellow eyes. A perfect headshot. The creature went down. Dead. 

One soldier stepped forward to toe at the body. 

“Cabron.” Muttered one of the only two survivors from Team Two. 

Team One’s team leader slid up next to Ward. “Our orders were to capture the target alive, sir.”

“Give it a sec.” Both survivors of Team Two announced in perfect unison. 

The rest of the guys all looked between one another in confusion, not understanding. The target was dead. Why did they have to ‘give it a sec’?

Then, right before their eyes, the head-shot healed too. Brain matter regenerating, bone remodeling over the, skin knitting itself back together to close the wound. With a growl that sounded almost like human frustration, the monster pushed itself back to its feet. 

Ward shot it again. 

In the head again. 

“Tie it up before it can revive again!” He ordered. “Use the diamondinium cable. Darling says it should be able to hold the Commander. She wanted the target alive. Alive is what she’s gonna get.” Or, a form of it. “Once the target is secure, sweep the cave. Collect the remains of our guys, their weapons and equipment, and shells if they discharged live rounds. Leave no trace that we were ever here!”

To illustrate this, Ward bent down to police his own brass. Collecting all three casings from the three rounds he shot into the creature. He was never here. 

As he was sliding the warm casings into his pocket, the warm metal against his palm reminded him of the burned handprints Team Two mentioned over the radio and a thought occurred to him. “And take pictures of those burned hands in the cave. This thing didn’t use any fire. I wanna know where they came from.”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

…

Visiting days were the best days ever! 

They were the days he got to see his son! 

Battle rose early, before the guards came dragging their nightsticks across the bars to give everyone their wakeup call. 

In the showers, the guys all gave him his space. They all heard stories about this one time someone attacked him in the shower and made him miss his visit with his family, and Battle ripped the guy’s kidney out for it –not everyone was sure how much of that story was true and how much was exaggerated. But still, no one wanted to get on the bad side of a super that was rumored to be able to do that. They were extra cautious just moving around him. “Excuse me, Mr. Battle.” “Pardon me, Mr. Battle.” “Don’t mind me, Mr. Battle, I’ll just wait.”

The guys on laundry detail even had a fresh jumpsuit folded and waiting for him after he got out of the shower. “Mountain Fresh scent, just like you like, Mr. Battle.”

Newly washed and smelling good, wearing clean clothes that looked good (‘good’ being a relative term in Max Pen), Battle was escorted by two guards to the visitors’ windows. 

Warren was already waiting for him and Battle smiled at the younger man. Then the expression fell when he saw the dark scowl on his son’s face. Warren was not happy. It could not be anything new. Battle was locked up and on his best behavior, there wasn’t anything new for Warren to be upset about. So, it had to be old business and Battle quickly ran through a mental inventory of every bad thing he’d done in his life that Warren might possibly find out about while working as a local hero. 

Most of Battle’s jobs and supervillain work took him over seas and out of the country, so the list was short. 

Sitting down in the chair –that was bolted to the floor- in front of the visiting window, Battle picked up the phone receiver that would allow them to talk through the concussion glass. Up close, Warren didn’t just look angry, he looked grim, and Battle had to wonder if it wasn’t something he did, but rather something that happened. To Mara, maybe? Was she okay? Was she injured? She was supposed to have retired from heroing. Mara promised Warren she would retire. 

At first, Warren said nothing when he picked up the receiver on his side of the glass, and that only filled Battle with more dread. It was something terrible, wasn’t it. It was Mara, wasn’t it. She hadn’t retired like she said she would. She was injured. Or dead. Shot, or stabbed, or frozen, or thrown in a vat of acid or-

Warren opened his mouth to speak. Second guessed whatever it was he was about to say. Closed it again. Looked away. 

Battle needed to know. Whatever it was that set the younger man on edge, Battle needed to know. There wouldn’t be anything he could do about it. Not from within the confines of Maxville Penitentiary. But he still needed to know. It would drive him mad until he found out, and a stark raving mad Barron Battle was not something anyone wanted –least of all Battle himself. 

“Spit it out, Little Soldier.” He said. “I can take it.”

Meeting his father’s eyes, Warren nodded, then took in a breath. Steeling himself for the conversation they were about to have. He slid off his leather jacket and rolled up one sleeve of his shirt, revealing a bandage on his arm. Unwrapping the gauze to expose the wound, Warren held his arm up to the glass so that his father could get a clear view of the wound. 

A bite. 

But not from a dog, or a cat, or a werewolf, or man-croc, or any other kind of traditional predator or monster. Nothing with sharp teeth. This was the blunt tearing of flesh. A flat-toothed bite. The teeth marks leaving a clear pattern. Curved on both ends. An ungle pattern. Flat teeth in an ungle shape. 

“That’s a human bite.” Battle concluded. And the mark was on the outside of Warren’s arm. Not a place that would get bitten if a person were trying to escape a hold. That was a place that would only get bitten if Warren were trying to block. Someone had come at Warren with the intension to bite. “Who would-“

“Hardwin Battle.” Warren growled the name. 

At the mere mention of his father’s name, Barron Battle suddenly found it hard to breath. Suddenly there just wasn’t enough air in the room. Why wasn’t there any air in the room. Did someone turn off the indoor climate control? Had the visiting cubicles always been this tight? Why did he feel pined in? Trapped. What was that pounding sound in his ears? That couldn’t possibly be his heart! Could it? Why couldn’t he breath? 

“Dad…?” Warren was leaned forward, standing on his feet, one hand pressed to the glass. The grim anger gone from his face and replaced with concern. 

Warren. His son. His child. Hardwin had gone after his child! Hardwin had hurt his child! Battle didn’t kill him hard enough the first time! He should have killed him more. Buried him deeper. Made sure he could never get out. Never come back! Thirty years. Thirty years he’d been free of that man. Now he was back, and exacting his revenge from Battle’s only child. 

Battle closed his eyes. 

But when he did all he saw was his father’s face. Stern and unforgiving. Glaring down at him from the top of the stairs. 

‘It was an accident, Squire, now wipe your eyes and get up.’

‘It wasn’t an accident! You killed her!’

For some reason, Battle could not get his breathing under control. The hand holding the phone shook and he had to put it down to get himself collected. 

He wasn’t here. Hardwin Battle wasn’t here. 

Warren was here. Warren was alive. Warren could not die. Warren would be fine. Warren was fine. Warren was here and Hardwin was not. It was safe. Warren was safe and Battle was safe. 

Battle took a breath. Held it. Opened his eyes. 

Warren was still staring at him with concern. 

Battle picked the phone up again. When he spoke this time, his voice shook. “Did he hurt you any more than that?”

“No.” Warren assured him. 

Battle took in another breath. Let it out slowly. Good. That was good. If all Hardwin did was just one little… bite? For some reason, Battle’s brain was only just now processing the strangeness of it. Biting had never been in his father’s repertoire of abuse before. Smacking a person around, sure. Hitting with closed fist. Smashing skulls against the stone mantel of the fire place. Throwing people down stairs in a way that snapped her neck. That was Hardwin Battle’s brand of violence. Not… biting. “He bit you?”

Warren just continued to stare at him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Battle tried to assure his son. Although he did not feel fine. He inexplicably felt like he’d just gone a couple rounds against Steve Stronghold again. But he hadn’t moved from his chair. He was short of breath and inexplicably tired. But he needed to know. “Tell me what Hardwin did to you.”

“You don’t look fine.” Warren informed him. “You look like you’re having a panic attack.”

“I don’t get panic attacks.” Battle assured him. Warren was wrong. Besides, people didn’t panic at the mere mention of names. That wasn’t a thing! …Was it? That didn’t matter. That was between him and the prison shrink. “How did Hardwin find you? Is Mara safe?”

For half a second Warren looked confused. “Mom’s fine. Mom’s just being mom. That’s not what I came to talk to you about.”

Battle breathed a sigh of relief. Mara was fine. His wife was fine. Hardwin hadn’t done anything to her. 

“Dad.” Warren sounded almost business urgent. “I need to know what happens to us when we’re killed.” 

There was a pause. He glanced around at the guards. He did not like discussing superpowers when not in costume. But ‘Phoenix’ was only granted permission to see Barron Battle if the visit was relevant to a legal case with a paper trail. Phoenix could only speak with Barron Battle after filling out request forms and filing warrants. Warren Peace got to see his father much more regularly. But ‘Warren Peace’ was just a mundane culinary school student and definitely not at all associated with any superheroes. He was so ‘not associated’ in fact, that no one had ever seen Warren Peace and Phoenix in the same room together. 

Taking a breath and lowering his voice to a whisper so that the phones they were speaking through were barely even able to pick it up, Warren finished his question. “I need to know what happens when we come back and we can’t get… ‘fresh meat’ fast enough. Say, for about thirty years. What do we… become?”

Battle blinked in incomprehension. A small stone of dread sinking into his stomach at the question. He thought back over ten years, when the Commander and Jetstream apprehended him. Steve stabbed him in the heart, impaling him on a broken segment of rebar. When he revived from that, Josie was so shocked and terrified that she stabbed him six more time and he died again. It was two deaths and resurrections in quick succession. Afterwards, he needed meat. He needed meat a lot. But he was kept sequestered in holding cells, or transport wagons. Always cuffed. Always behind bars. Always restrained. By the time his defense lawyer showed up, Battle was ready to eat him! If Mara hadn’t accompanied the lawyer with a tupperware container of ‘rare steak’ (a cow heart sliced to look like shredded steak)… That was the closest Battle had ever come to… Battle actually wasn’t sure what it was he almost came to back then.

“I don’t know.” He had to admit. 

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Warren pulled out his phone. Battle watched him swipe the screen a couple times before he held it up to the glass. “Do we become this?”

Eyes flicking down, Battle saw the LED screen filled with the image of… something out of a B-horror movie. The picture quality was not that great. Cameras in phones were still a technology in progress and the subject was obviously moving when the picture was taken. The image was that of a skeletal thin creature. Its skin pulled so tight over its bones you could see its joints. It was corpse-pale, almost white. The face wild and angry, with eyes of a wrong color that were sunken in their sockets. Hair matted and dirty. It looked like an honest to goodness, true, and actual monster. Something that looked like it could have been human, but was not human anymore. 

Somehow, it seemed fitting. Hardwin always was a monster. Now his exterior matched his interior. Battle found it oddly satisfying in a morbid sort of way.

Thene something occurred to him. “Who took this picture?” 

“I did.” Warren told him. 

“I want you to stay away from him.” Battle informed –no, Battle ordered his son. 

But Warren shook his head. “I can’t. I have to find him and capture him.”

“I don’t want him anywhere near you. Do you understand?” Battle insisted. 

He was breathing hard again. Heart hammering in his ears. He did not want that man within a hundred miles of his son. He did not want that man on the same continent as his son. Every decision Battle ever made in his adult life was to distance himself from that man. He became a villain because Hardwin Battle was a hero. He married an immodest woman because Hardwin Battle only would have disapproved. When his son was born, he was the stay-at-home-dad because Hardwin Battle was the least nurturing person in the universe. And he never raised a hand against either his wife of his child –in anger or otherwise- because he did not want to be the kind of ‘family man’ his father was. 

“He’s out there and I’m the only one who actually knows what he is.” Warren tried to reason with his father. Although, both of them realized he didn’t have to reason with the older man. Battle was locked up and could not do anything from inside prison. Warren could say he wasn’t going to pursue Hardwin Battle just to placate his father, then go and do it anyway, and there was nothing Barron could do about it. “He can’t be killed and he can’t be stopped. I have to do something about him.”

“You don’t have to do anything.” Battle argued, voice louder than it needed to be. He as almost shouting he was so loud. Shouting and breathing hard. He could hear the blood in his ears. “You just have to keep yourself safe because I’m not out there to protect you like I should!”

“I don’t need my dad to protect me.” Now he was just insulted. 

“You need to stay away from Hardwin Battle!” Barron repeated. “Let it go. Let this one go. Every hero gets a cold case every now and again. Something that can’t be solved. The Big Bad isn’t defeated. The murderer isn’t caught. The stolen items are never recovered. Some cases just run cold. Let this one go cold.”

…

END


End file.
